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LOTZE'S

OUTLINES OF PHILOSOPHY
ii

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

OUTLINES

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

DICTATED PORTIONS

LECTURES OF HERMANN LOTZE

TRANSLATION EDITED BY

GEORGE T. LADD

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN YALE COLLEGE

BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BYJ5INN & COMPANY.

1886.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by

GEORGE T. LADD,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

J. S. GUSHING & Co., PRINTERS, 115 HIGH STREET, BOSTON.

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

THIS translation of Lotze's 'Outlines of the
Philosophy of Religion ' is made from the German
of the second edition, for the revision of which,
as well as for that of the first German edition,
Professor Rehnisch of Gottingen is responsible.
In preference to the first edition, the second was
selected, because it seems to be at once more
compact (if that were possible) and more compre
hensive. It is composed of the dictated portions
of the Lectures given in the Summer-Semester of
1875 and the Winter-Semester of 1878-79. The
first eight chapters belong to the earlier date ;
and, in fact, the course of 1875 closed with them.
It was not until the year 1878 that Lotze added
to this course the instruction on Religion and Mo
rality (Chapter IX.) and on Dogmas and Confessions
(Chapter X.).

In choosing this volume for the second place in
the series of translations of these Outlines, I have
been guided to a considerable extent by my own
convenience as a teacher. It will be found to be
very closely connected with, and indeed founded
upon, the conclusions already made accessible in

VI EDITOR S PREFACE.

the translation of the ' Outlines of Metaphysic.'
The Philosophy of Religion is, of course, primarily
a speculative or theoretical treatment of the proofs
for the Being of God, of his Attributes, and of
his Relations to the World of matter and of finite
spirits. But Lotze's metaphysical thinking leads
him to the conclusion that the source and centre
and sum of all that Reality with which it is the
business of Metaphysic to deal, is the Personal
Absolute whom — to use the language of Tren-
delenburg — "faith calls God." The Philosophy
of Religion must therefore first derive from Meta
physic the results of a critical treatment of those
assumptions concerning all that is Real, which
enter into all experience ; it must afterwards dis
cuss these same assumptions in that expanded
form which is the result of taking into the ac
count the content of a further special experience
of an aesthetic, ethical, and definitively religious
kind. Readers who have not already made them
selves somewhat familiar with the author's views
on metaphysical questions, should, in studying this
volume, recur constantly to the ' Outlines of Meta
physic,' or to the larger volume on Metaphysic in
his ' System of Philosophy.'

It is my earnest hope that a large number" of
those whose work it is to teach religion will make

EDITOR S PREFACE. vii

a somewhat careful study of this brief philosophi
cal treatise. It seems to me admirably adapted
for an exercise in that fundamental thinking on
the most important of subjects presented to the
human reason, which no one can safely despise,
and which few are in a position wisely to neglect.
It is surely when applied to such subjects, if at
all, that Philosophy may make good her claim to
the ancient title which ascribed to her something
of the ' divine.'

It is scarcely necessary for me to repeat what
was said in the Preface to the ' Outlines of Meta-
physic ' ; namely, that my office is solely that of
an interpreter, and not at all that of a critic or
judge, — favorable or unfavorable to any views of
the author. One remark, however, may properly
be added, simply with a view to guard those
readers who are not familiar with the writings of
Lotze, against impressions that might lead to mis
understanding him. This entire treatise is avow
edly designed to inquire "how much of the con
tent of religion may be discovered, proved, or at
least confirmed, agreeably to reason " (see p. 2).
It is an effort to treat of " Religion within the
limits of mere reason." But it is also avowedly
very far from that " barren rationalism " which
overlooks the 'aesthetic' (in the widest sense)

VJ11 EDITOR S PREFACE.

elements of human nature (p. 6 f.) ; it makes con
stant reference to, and attempts to afford satis
faction for, our indestructible religious needs. Par
ticularly in the last two chapters, therefore, it
should be remembered, that what may be said to
be, ' speculatively ' considered, either determinable
or unknowable, is by no means necessarily the
same when considered from the point of view
occupied by the investigator of the specific truths
of Biblical revelation. In other words, a large
amount of speculative agnosticism is not incom
patible with a firm conviction as to the truthful
ness of the system of doctrines called Scriptural,
and scientifically formulated by dogmatics.

The first translation of this volume, with the
exception of Chapters II. to IV., was made by
L. O. Brastow, D.D. : the editor is responsible for
the translation of those three chapters and for
the revision of the whole. The nature of both
the subject and its treatment has made it pos
sible to present this one of the series, with the
exception of certain distinctively metaphysical por
tions, in a form more easily intelligible to most
readers than was possible in the case of the
'Outlines of Metaphysic.'

GEORGE T. LADD.

NEW HAVEN, January, 1885.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION i

CHAPTER I. — The Proofs for the Existence of God j^/' 8
II. — More precise Determinations of the Abso
lute ....... 35

III. — The Metaphysical Attributes of God . 45

IV. — Of the Personality of the Absolute . 55
V. — Of the Conception of Creation ... 70

VI. — Of Preservation 81

VII. — Of Government . ..... 95

VIII. — Of the Conception of the World-Aim . 114

IX. — Religion and Morality .... 129

X. — Dogmas and Confessions . . . 143

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1. If religion were a normal product of the
human reason alone, then philosophy would be
the sole legitimate organ for determining and
interpreting its content.

If, on the contrary, it sprung from revelation,
then reason alone would not be able, it is true,
to have discovered it ; but after it were in exist
ence, it would still be necessary to show that its
content is the adequate fulfilment for those re
ligious needs which our reason is compelled to cher
ish, but would not be able of itself to satisfy. Even
in this case, therefore, philosophy would have a
work to accomplish by way of such authenticating.
The assertion that the content of religion is a
'mystery' is not convincing. There can be many
facts of religion of such sort that the possibility
of their coming to pass may not admit of rational
apprehension ; and yet we should not without ex:
ception take offence at this. But a ' mystery,'
the significance of which were not at least sus
ceptible of definition, would be a mere curiosity
devoid of all connection with our religious needs,

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

and, on this account, an unworthy object of reve
lation.

Finally, if religion were a morbid product of the
human spirit, philosophy, even in that case, would
find occupation. It would have to investigate psy
chologically and historically the conditions of the
origin of this delusion, as well as the conditions
of avoiding it in the future.

The principal object of the following reflections
is connected with the first point of view above
suggested : that is, we seek to ascertain how much
of the content of religion may be discovered,
proved, or at least confirmed, agreeably to reason.
The two other points of view we subordinate to
this.

§ 2. It is customary to demand faith in contrast
with knowledge as the proper organ for the truths
of religion. Such an assertion finds its most exact
expression in the intimation that, in fact, even
scientific cognition always rests ultimately upon
' faith ' ; that is to say, upon an immediate act of
trust in certain absolutely simple and self-evident
truths, which are neither in need of any proof, nor
capable of it.

An important distinction is overlooked in the
above-mentioned view. All such ultimate, self-

THE PROPOSITIONS OF FAITH.

evident propositions, upon which our knowledge is
founded, are general judgments, which do not tell
us that anything whatever is or takes place, but
which only declare what would exist or would have
to take place, in case definite conditions occur ; or
— more concisely — they all merely express certain
general rules, which we are obliged to follow in the
combination of the content of our ideas. On the
contrary, those propositions upon which the most
special interest of religion depends, — for example,
that God is, that He has created the world, that
the soul survives death, etc., — are all of them
declarative judgments, which assert a definite, par
ticular fact. With respect to the before-mentioned
general propositions, it may be understood that
they are capable of being objects of our imme
diate insight or evidence ; for they are nothing but
expressions of the forms of activity, in which our
reason according to its own nature must be exer
cised. On the other hand, these declarative propo
sitions of faith, which assert a fact with respect to
the ordering of the world that is foreign to our
own nature, cannot with equal legitimacy be re
garded as a natural or innate endowment of our
spirit, but are in some sort the results of culture.

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

§ 3. It would be better to have undertaken a
comparison of religious truth and scientific cog
nition different from the foregoing. No cognition
consists merely of those general propositions of
which we. have made mention ; but every cognition
originates by means of the application of these prop
ositions to a content which only experience can fur
nish ; more concisely, it is an elaboration of given
perceptions. Now it might be asserted that it is not
the external world exclusively which furnishes these
necessary data by influence on our senses. Rather
is it quite as admissible to think of a divine or
supersensible influence upon our interior being, by
means of which ' intuitions ' of another species fall
to our lot, such as the senses can never supply,
and such as constitute just that religious cognition
which obtrudes itself upon us with immediate cer
tainty.

It is to be said in reply to the foregoing claim
that, although the aforesaid divine influences are
willingly conceded, still, according to the analogy
of the ' sense-impressions ' which are brought into
comparison with them, they can consist imme
diately in nothing but a certain mode of our affec
tion, or of our experience, or of our feeling. Now,
just as a sense-impression, — for example, a color
or a tone, — is after all no ' cognition ' whatever ;

ORIGIN OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH.

but such a cognition originates only by comparing
one impression with others, and by noticing the
relations which occur between them, just so would
those supersensible impressions consist immediately
in mere feelings, moods, or movements of our own
mind; but they would still represent in this form
no truth of religion. The rather would such a
truth, as admits of being expressed in a definite
communicable proposition, originate only through
the agency of an elaboration in thought of those
'inner experiences' which go back to the 'grounds'
of these states of the mind.

§ 4. The only remnant of any useful result from
this opposition of science to faith is, therefore, the
conviction that the whole of our knowledge certainly
does not originate from external experience, which
is mediated for us by the senses ; but that there are
also inner states which are available as data for
the acquisition of truth. The finishing of the
structure of religion depends, not exclusively but
chiefly, upon these latter data ; and of such inner
states there may be distinguished three groups : —

(i) The personal feelings of fear, of absolute
dependence on unknown powers, which belong to
the most effective, but also to the most crude of
the fundamental impulses that urge the mind to

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

seek consolation in a non-empirical view of the
world.

(2) Then there are the much nobler and just as
truly effective aesthetic feelings that yield them
selves admiringly to the beautiful which they dis
cover in the world, and by means of it are incited
to form a picture of an ideal world. This they
do without any egoistic interest in the consolation
desired ; but rather with the sure conviction that
what is so fair and full of significance cannot be
an accidental product of that which is without
significance, but must be either the very Princi
ple of the world or closely related to its creative
principle.

(3) Finally, there are the ethical feelings, which,
without being deducible from 'mere experience,'
necessitate the attempt to conceive of a construc
tion of the world in which this fact of the moral
obligation of the will to a definite form of action
finds an intelligible and rational place.

If now we conceive of the truth of religion as
developed from all these data by means of our
reflection, then we certainly get at what might be
designated as "Religion within the limits of mere
reason," but still not at that which has been so
called. For, in most attempts of this kind, the
great and weighty influence of the aforesaid aes-

CAUSES OF BARREN RATIONALISM. /

thetic elements is especially overlooked, and, there
by, a very barren rationalism takes the place of that
which the whole reason, acting in all directions,
would be able to produce.

CHAPTER I.

THE PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.

§ 5. The different attempts of reason to attain to
certainty concerning the Supersensible, by starting
from all the above-mentioned points of departure,
are too manifold for direct statement. As often,
however, as science has undertaken to give an
account of its profits, it has done this in a doctrine
of the " Proofs for the existence of God." Accord
ingly we also now present these proofs with the
design to show how each one of them adopts its
own special method for discovering a portion of
the supersensible truth ; and with the brief pre
liminary remark that these proofs naturally cannot,
properly speaking, demonstrate the existence of God
as necessary, — that is, as dependent on something
else, — but that they are all able merely to demon
strate our assumption of this existence as a logi
cally necessary consequence of the given facts of
the world.

§ 6. The ontological argument, as ordinarily ap
prehended, maintains that, while the conception of
other beings does not include their existence, the

THE MOST PERFECT BEING.

conception of the most perfect Being of all does
include it ; and that this being would in fact con
tradict its own conception, if the one perfection
— to wit, existence itself — did not belong to it.

The logical error of this argument is sufficiently
well known. Not merely the conception of the
most perfect Being, but indeed that of every living
or active being (as, for example, the conception of
an animal), includes existence also as necessary to
be added in thought for defining it ; and without
this all the rest of its predicates (e.g., sensation,
motion, propagation, etc.) would be quite unthink
able. But with respect to no one of these concep
tions, does it follow from the necessity of adding
in thought this mark (of existence), that after this
the total content of the conception thus fully
thought -1 has validity in the nature of reality also,
and that it may not be a merely thinkable combi
nation of our imagination.

But although logically this attempt at proof is
quite invalid, it is nevertheless of interest in other
respects. For that which induces it to regard
existence as a necessary attribute of the total
content of the conception of the most perfect
Being, is not, as it is in the case of the other
conception (that of the animal), the mere circum
stance that the rest of the predicates would admit

IO PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

of formal attachment to what is existent only, and
not to what is non-existent. This is obviously
rather a case where an altogether immediate con
viction breaks through into consciousness ; to wit,
the conviction that the totality of all that has
value — all that is perfect, fair, and good — can
not possibly be homeless in the world or in the
realm of actuality, but has the very best claim to
be regarded by us as imperishable reality. This
assurance, which properly has no need of proof,
has sought to formulate itself, after a scholastic
fashion, in the above-mentioned awkward argument.

§ 7. The cosmological argument begins in an ap
prehension of frequent occurrence, yet withal wholly
incorrect ; namely, that the existence of each indi
vidual Thing and of the world in general is contin
gent, and therefore presupposes not a contingent
but a necessary Being. At this point, the particular
conceptions which are wrongly attached to this
thought, must be first subjected to a definition.

The ordinary use of language is not at all ac
quainted with the philosophic significance of the
word 'contingent,' according to which it is applicable
to every existing thing whose non-existence in gen
eral would be thinkable without contradiction, and
whose conception or whose nature accordingly offers

IDEA OF THE 'CONTINGENT.' II

no resistance to the cessation of its own existence.
Rather does the common usage in the first instance
merely contrast the ' contingent ' with the designed,
and understands by it all those secondary effects
which, without being themselves designed, originate
from action of ours that is designed. This happens
because our actions themselves are for the most part
capable of accomplishment only by means of some
change in the objects of the external world ; these
objects, however, because of those relations inde
pendent of ourselves in which they stand to each
other, cannot be changed by us without propagating
still further in various directions the impressions
they have received.

We speak, furthermore, of ' contingent ' events,
when* we have directed our attention to a general
law of nature and when, in its application to a
single case, processes occur which do not follow
from the law and from the circumstances necessary
for its application, but only from the accessory cir
cumstances that are foreign to the law. Even
such a 'contingent,' as well as the preceding, is,
wherever it occurs, necessary and inevitable, and is
constantly conditioned by its own adequate reasons ;
only these reasons do not reside in the design nor
in the law.

Finally, we also call such facts 'contingent' as

12 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

are assumed by us not to be predestinated in such
a plan of the world's course as we have rightly
or wrongly presupposed, but only to originate inci
dentally through the mechanism of those efficient
agencies which are summoned for the accomplish
ment of that plan.

And with the one just mentioned is connected the
still broader use of the word, according to which it
becomes a mere determination of value, and desig
nates that whose nature and content seem to de
serve existence neither on account of its own value
nor by connection with other values ; although it,
nevertheless, is in possession of such existence. In
this sense, the ' contingent ' is simply the matter
of fact, whose being does not permit either of deri
vation from an effectuating condition, or of justifi
cation by its own value.

§ 8. The other conception, namely, that of the
'necessary,' is, in the only meaning of it which is
quite clear to us, completely identical with that of
the 'conditioned.' That only 'is' necessary, the ac
tuality of which cannot be conceived of as lacking,
whenever a definite presupposed condition actually
takes place.

But it is very easy to understand whence comes
the wish to place in opposition to this "condi-

IDEA OF THE 'NECESSARY.' 13

tioned necessary " another of a higher sort. For a
given c, which must of course exist in case a deter
minate b exists, is 'necessary' only in the sense of
its being forced. By means of its own nature
merely, and without the aid of b, this c would not
exist. The ' necessary ' in that higher sense which
is sought, would therefore be such an one as is not
dependent on anything else for its existence, and
consequently is not conditioned.

But it is entirely incorrect to persist in designat
ing such an unconditioned as is sought for, by the
predicate 'necessary.' It must rather be called
the absolute matter of fact, which exists for the
reason merely that it does exist ; which does not
need jior its existence any extraneous condition ;
but which, for precisely this reason, can only be an
actual and never a necessary existence.

§ 9. According to the analysis made above, the
thoughts of the cosmological argument do not co
here well. From the so-called 'contingent,' — i.e.
from that which is conditioned by something else
external to it, and in just this respect must be
called likewise necessary, — it is certainly possible
to ascend to the Unconditioned, whose existence
is dependent on nothing else ; but for this very
reason such an unconditioned is not 'necessary,'

14 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

but merely matter of fact or actual. The desire to
find something, which by means of its own nature,
made its own existence necessary, is intrinsically
beyond the possibility of realization, — as we saw it
to be in the case of the ontological argument ; and
to this cause was due also the failure of the thought
that the Unconditioned which is sought is to be
found in a most perfect Being. To that merely
actual (not necessary) unconditioned existence, the
smallest, meanest, and most insignificant thing has
just as good a claim as the most perfect ; and that
precisely for the reason that it is an unconditioned
existence, and therefore is dependent on no reasons
of any kind.

In another direction also the cosmological argu
ment goes farther than its premises permit. It was
legitimate to seek an Unconditioned for the Condi
tioned in the world ; but it is an altogether arbi
trary leap to assume that this Unconditioned must
be One ; and, furthermore, that it can be conceived
of only in the form of a single real Being. It
is possible that this assumption may be justified
subsequently; but just at this point the other as
sumption, to which the natural sciences have come
through their need of interpreting the world, obvi
ously lies much nearer at hand. We refer to the
assumption of a very great multiplicity of uncon-

A SINGLE UNCONDITIONED BEING.

ditionally existing elements, which are independent
of each other, and are only subject to a general
sphere of laws in accordance with which the mani
fold phenomena proceed from their changeable posi
tions with respect to each other.

One more consideration of a logical character
must first qualify this view. It is that we get no
insight as to how a single unconditioned being,
even though it were in existence, would be able to
condition anything else, and therefore serve as the
desired initial member in the conditioned series of
the world's events. A conclusion or a consequence
never follows except from the concurrence of two
premises, and not from one premise alone. To the
one unconditioned Being, therefore, if aught is to
result from it, there would always" have to be added
again other accessory circumstances, which do not
emanate from it, but which are just as much uncon
ditioned : the world therefore would not be depend
ent upon one, but upon many unconditioned begin
nings.

§ 10. The teleological argument proposes to make
that empirical conformity to an end, which appears
in the world, the point of departure for an inference
with respect to a single designing and creative rea
son, as the supreme cause of the world.

l6 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

Let us in the first place investigate the con
ception of that which is 'conformable to an end,'
as such. This conception is entirely free from
ambiguity only when we take our start from the
conscious purposes of our own will, which are
fixed upon a determinate result as their end. In
that case, what is ' conformable to an end ' is the
selection or combination of means, which, by their
legitimate action, bring about the realization of the
aforesaid end. To call those means themselves
' conformable to an end ' is, properly speaking, not
correct. They are themselves merely serviceable :
that is to say, their nature is in itself calculated
for no determinate end whatever, such as we might
set for ourselves ; but it is merely of such sort
that a useful application of it to our ends be
comes possible for us.

Now that this ' serviceableness ' or ' accidental
conformity ' of things in the world to an end, is
of very frequent occurrence, proves nothing further.
For when once there exist Things with properties
of their own and with established methods of ac
tion, it is a matter of course that some of our
designs (which themselves, in the last analysis,
always amount to the same as some alteration
in the states of Things) may be accomplished by
means of the activity to which other Things lay

IMMANENT CONFORMITY TO END. I/

claim. More than this, however, does not in reality
take place. The nature of Things is not so emi
nently useful, that it would be sufficient for the ac
complishment even of all authorized designs ; and it
is not so absolutely useful that it might not serve
just as well for the frustration of that which is
rational, and for the production of that which is
unauthorized.

§ 11. In contrast with the aforesaid utility, an
"immanent conformity to an end" is spoken of,
which appears primarily in the individual organisms
that have no other end beyond their own existence,
but in each one of which all parts are recipro-
cally^related as end and means. Such conformity
to an end is then transferred from these individ
ual organisms to the Universe, as to a "great or
ganism."

Now we are accustomed to assert that these com
posite forms cannot possibly be mere products of
the blind co-operation of many elements, without the
unity of one controlling design. Such a conclusion
is decidedly false. Even supposing a conscious de
sign to be demonstrably at work, still the realiza
tion of its end is always dependent on the fact, that
every particle of this end is likewise the inevita
ble and undesignedly necessary product of the co-

1 8 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

operation of the means summoned to aid. The
end would not be possible at all if it were impossi
ble in accordance with the laws of the mechanism
which these means follow ; and it would not be
actual, if it were not also necessary in accordance
with these laws, at the very instant when the afore
said means are applied.

But still further : It is supposed that at least the
bringing together of the means themselves, into
those positions in which they are of necessity com
pelled to realize the end, is impossible without a
controlling design. But again it may be answered :
Even where this design actually exists, it is unable
to bring the usable means into those useful posi
tions by its own mere volition ; on the contrary, it is
able to accomplish this only by summoning physical
agencies and forces of a sort similar to the means
themselves. Therefore the state attained at any
given instant, when the end is accomplished, must
be regarded as the necessary resultant of the co
operation of these forces at the preceding instant ;
and instead of ' an intelligence which might ex
plain the state of the case belonging to this pre
ceding instant, there may always be substituted a
combination of other blind elements and forces
which were compelled to have precisely the same
result.

IMMANENT CONFORMITY TO END.

To state the same thing briefly : The completely
automatic blind origin even of the system most
conformable to an end, is never impossible ; it is
only improbable. And now the question comes,
what is meant by this latter expression ?

§ 12. If we take for granted, that an indefinite
multitude of different elements act upon one an
other entirely in accordance with mechanical laws,
and that they were aboriginally in reciprocal mo
tions which were not regulated by any design, then
there might issue from such conditions innumera
ble possible consequences. The forms possessed of
an immanent conformity to an end would represent
only* a very insignificant number among these pos
sible consequences ; and therefore they would have
very little probability of coming into existence. But
to reason back from this to a design proposing
an end, would be valid only in case the forms con
formable to the end alone appeared in the world ;
and in case those other results that are without
an end, or in contradiction to an end, were neither
present in experience, nor needed to be assumed
even as having existed in the past.

Neither of the above-mentioned suppositions cor
responds with the facts. In our actual observation
there occur innumerable cases of disease and of the

2O PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

failure of rational life-ends; — to say nothing what
ever of the very many facts and occurrences which,
so far as our discernment extends, are at least with
out an end, even if they disturb no other end. But
with reference to the past we are at liberty to as
sume, that at first an innumerable multitude of in
harmonious forms, intrinsically hostile to any end,
actually emerged from the reciprocal impact of blind
elements ; that these forms, however, were not able
to maintain themselves in the course of nature, as
against the constant assaults from without ; that, on
the contrary, only those few held out, which had
chanced to be the more fortunate ; that then these
fortunate ones exerted more and more a determin
ing influence upon the rest ; and that thus gradu
ally it has come to pass, that nature runs its course,
not indeed in complete perfection and conformity to
an end, but after all to such an extent that there
still remain but few disturbances or interferences
by which the development and perpetuation of the
structures that are conformable to an end, is en
dangered. In this way, therefore, it would not be
unthinkable that an original chaos gradually shaped
itself into a nature that is arranged in conformity
to ends.

INTELLIGENT ELEMENTS OF REALITY. 21

§ 13. Moreover, it is not necessary to stop with
the altogether meagre assumptions which we have
made. If it is once held to be conceivable that
a single supreme intelligence may exert an influ
ence upon the reciprocal relations of the elements
of the world, then similar intelligence may also be
imagined as immediately active in all these indi
vidual elements themselves ; and, instead of con
ceiving them as controlled merely by blindly op
erative forces, they may be imagined as animated
spiritual beings, who strive after certain states and
offer resistance to certain other states. In such
case there may be imagined the gradual origin of
ever more perfect relations, from the reciprocal
action of these elements, almost like the reciprocal
action ^of a human society ; and that too without
necessarily arriving at the assumption, to which we
are here inclined, of a single, supreme, intelligent
Being. Our reasoning issues rather in a sort of
polytheistic or even pantheistic conception, and that
too in quite tolerable agreement with experience.

§ 14. Against what was said above it may still
be objected, that the persistence, the power of self-
maintenance, and the equipoise of the more for
tunate forms, which we previously admitted to have
originated in the blind course of nature, are not

22 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

identical with that conformity to an end, the ad
miration for which was our point of departure in
the teleological argument. The aforesaid mere equi
poise, and the permanence that originates from it,
might also belong of themselves to altogether pur
poseless forms ; that is to say, to forms whose entire
existence would have absolutely no immediate value
and no rational significance. Both these character
istics however we suppose we recognize in those
structures conformable to an end, which we are here
making our point of departure.

There is a remainder of truth in the above-men
tioned view ; but the thought does not prove what
it was assumed to prove. To wit, so soon as we
confine ourselves simply to admiration for an imma
nent conformity to an end, we are in fact scarcely
ever able to demonstrate conclusively that the total
result which is produced by it is actually anything
of absolute value ; — a value which would have to
be apprehended either as being generically its own
end, or as being such an end as to admit of our
understanding that it could have been devised only
by a designing wisdom, and that it only, rather than
one of its opposites, was worthy of this wisdom.

We admire, for example, the stability of the plan
etary system ; we believe that only a Providence
has been able to choose from among the innumer-

MEANS AND END IN ORGANISM. 23

able possible arrangements of its masses, precisely
that one on which this stability depends. But it
may be questioned whether after all this constant
repetition of the same occurrences is, as a matter
of course, a supreme end ; and whether it may not
rather be a tedious arrangement ; so much so that
there might conceivably have been innumerable
arrangements, that never occur in the actual world,
which the one succession of different developments
of the heavenly bodies might have established, —
something much more manifold, novel, and inter
esting. In plants, after they once exist, everything
harmonizes as means and end. But what is the
value of their entire existence ? Ends external to
themselves, which they serve, are accomplished by
them ; Jmt they might possibly have been accom
plished by a shorter method. Their own growth
and bloom is in the estimate of our understanding
an entirely purposeless fact, in which nothing fur
ther actually appears than that equipoise which the
mechanical course of nature is capable of produc
ing, and from which the conformity to an end here
assumed should be quite essentially distinguished.

The above-mentioned consideration may be ex
tended to the world of animals and men : so long
as" there are still among the latter so many com
plaints about unrealizable ideals, the thought that

24 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

much of the beauty we conceive has no existence
will continue to nullify the conclusiveness of the
teleological argument.

§ 15. If we summarize our thoughts, there re
mains but one point of a positive character, and
this is the conviction that there is in the world
at all events a great deal of that which is beautiful
and great and excellent, — admiration for which was
the point of departure for this teleological argu
ment ; and that it is by no means possible to get rid
of this argument by deducing all its examples from
the undesigned reciprocal actions of innumerable
elements, working in accordance with law. By such
deduction we merely change the location of that
which has value. We are necessitated then to as
sert of just that aforesaid original nature of the
elements, and of their general laws of action, that
they themselves from the very first include within
themselves the ground capable of developing that
which has value.

But the course of thought given above has ut
terly failed as an argument for the existence of God.
That Intelligence, of which we cannot be wholly
rid, admits just as well of being apprehended as a
property adhering immanently to all Things ; or
even, if one is pleased to seek it outside of Things,

FATE OF THE TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 25

as a multiplicity of spiritual beings or demons, who
share with each other in the creation and control
of the world. And each of these assumptions really
harmonizes better with the immediate impression
of experience than the hasty assumption of one
only supreme wisdom, from which as their source
the imperfections of the world, that in fact are
manifest to us, are .much more difficult to compre
hend.

§ 16. The teleological argument was wrecked by
the fact that it was unable, with sufficient certainty
arid to a sufficient extent, to prove empirically the
empirical datum, which it assumed to make its point
of departure, — namely, the world's conformity to
an end.

We attempt therefore to find our point of depart
ure in a simpler datum, which is not so doubtful,
and which is quite as generally acknowledged. And
we attempt to deduce from it, not exactly the
existence of God, but a more modest conclusion,
which shall serve us as a preliminary condition for
that other conclusion.

This datum is in substance the assumption that
all the elements of the world, without exception,
act upon each other, no matter whether adapted to
an end or the reverse ; and therefore that each

26 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

exerts influences upon the rest, or, in turn, receives
influences from them. So far as our experience
extends, it confirms this assumption. The objec
tion against it, that we know little of the past, and
absolutely nothing of the future, and that even in
the present perhaps individual elements do not
stand in any relation of reciprocal action with each
other, cannot refute the assumption. For this in
difference just mentioned between two elements —
a and 1> — at the same time that each individual
element stands in a relation of reciprocal action
with many others, we should after all never be com
pelled to regard as a fact devoid of all principle,
but as the necessary consequence of the same 'law,'
in accordance with which a and 1> exercise the afore
said other reciprocal actions. And just so, if in
the past or future these actions of the elements
with respect to each other, were different from
what they are . now ; yet we should not regard
even this as a fact independent of conditions, but
as conditioned by some fixed law, which sooner or
later would demand other actions with the same
consistency with which it now demands the ones
in question.

If what was said above be not acknowledged, but
if it were maintained rather that the elements of the
world, without any cause, have sometimes acted upon

THE ORIGINAL ELEMENTS RELATED. 2/

each other, in general, and at other times not at
all, at one time thus and at another time otherwise ;
then the very basis for every investigation would
be abolished. Such a world would furnish no data
whatever for any conclusion, even with respect to
an event that is to be anticipated within its own
limits merely, still less for any conclusion with re
spect to anything external to itself, which might be
regarded, as in any sense, its ground, its cause, its
end, or its principle.

§ 17. From the foregoing it follows now that
the individual elements, of which the world is com
posed, are by no means able to exist as they will ;
and that therefore a course of the world cannot
be deduced from real beings, which are from the
beginning wholly without relation to each other.

If, for example, all things were as incomparable
with each other or as disparate as perhaps 'red'
or ' sweet ' (and nothing would prevent the making
of such an assumption, in case each real being is
completely independent, and has to pay no regard
whatever to all the others), it is evident that no
definite result could possibly spring from any rela
tion between two such beings (supposing one to be
at all able to conceive of such a 'relation') with
any more right than any other could claim. For,

28 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

in order that the result in must originate from a
and b, while the same result in could- not originate
from a and c, it is necessary that there first exist
between b and c, not a complete incomparability,
but a definite contrariety, or a difference of definite
magnitude, — a thing which is not thinkable, unless
b and c are comparable.

The further development of these considerations
would show then, that this comparability must ob
tain, not merely between b and c, but between all
the real elements of the world ; and this in such
manner, that these elements constitute collectively,
not members of a single series, indeed, but rather
members of a system of series intersecting each
other; and also in such manner that it should be
possible for one to proceed from the nature of each
individual element to the nature of every other, by
a definite number of steps, taken within this net
work of system. Such a state of the case lies, as
a silent assumption, just as if it were utterly im
possible to be otherwise, at the foundation of our
entire view of the world ; and, on this account, the
importance of this wonderful circumstance is com
monly overlooked.

§ 18. It would be over-rash to infer from this,
without further question, a common origin for all

ALL ELEMENTS ARE COMPARABLE. 2Q

these elements. For although this comparableness
of theirs seems like a single select case from among
many in contrast with the empty possibilities which
we might be able to imagine (as, for example, that
all the elements were as totally different as ' red,'
' sweet,' or ' warm '), nevertheless there is appli
cable to the case no calculation of probabilities, in
accordance with which it would be impossible to
accept the existence of this particular case as a
mere matter of fact independently of a common
cause for all the elements.

On the contrary, a different conclusion is justi
fied. It is not enough that the natures of Things
are homogeneous, unless the same natures stand
in some other connection besides. From such ho
mogeneity it would barely follow what result (c)
must originate from the meeting of two beings a
and b, — taking it for granted that there were in
general some reason why something new must
originate, and why the mere existence of a and b
and their conjunction could not have been enough.
Or, as expressed in other words : The most that fol
lows from the comparable natures a and b concerns
the result which they are necessitated to produce,
or the manner in which they are necessitated to
act upon one another ; but it does not follow that
they must produce anything whatever, or that they
must act at all upon each other.

3O PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

In case we draw a conclusion c from two premises
a and b, the meaning is as follows : In the unity
of our thinking ego, the two thoughts a and b can
not appear as states of this ego without the thought
c being attached to them, — and this just on account
of the nature of this one subject. If, on the other
hand, the thought a were conceived by one person,
and the thought b by another, then the thought c
would not originate as a consequence in either one
of the two, although c, and c alone, would be the
necessary result of a and b provided they came to
gether at all. The case is exactly so with Things.
From the mere fact that one Thing a exists, and
another b exists, c does not by any means follow,
of course ; and this, although c would be the only
effect which could follow, provided a and b acted
upon each other. We must investigate the ques
tion what, in such a case, would correspond to
that identity of the thinking subject by means of
which the thoughts a and b alone are necessitated
to produce a result.

§ 19. We derive from Metaphysic the conviction,
that this fact of the reciprocal influence of two
Things a and b is impossible, so long as both were
conceived of as entirely self-sufficient and in such
sort independent of each other, that a might exist

THINGS AS MODES OF ONE BEING. 31

and be what it is, even though b had no existence.
It remains a completely insolvable contradiction,
that a and b accommodate themselves to each other
(that b, therefore, enters into a state p, as soon as
a enters into the state a), if a and b have no con
cern with each other.

We derive moreover from Metaphysic the further
conviction, that all middle terms, which are inter
polated between a and b, such as the ' transition '
of a ' substance,' of an ' influence,' or of a ' force,'
are either essentially inconceivable ideas, or at any
rate do not at all explain the action, but always
leave unanswered the -same question; namely, how
x after its transition from a to b can begin the
production of a change in b, — that is to say, how
x can act upon b, or how in general one Thing can
act upon another.

Finally, we derive the conviction that the afore
said inconceivableness can be removed only by the
negation of the independence of individual Things :
a and b cannot be absolutely different beings, but
only modifications of one and the same Being M,
which is in them all, in a, b, c, d, . . ., the truly
Existent ; and which has indeed assumed different
forms in all these different Things, but still re
mains indivisibly one and the same individual M.

If, then, in the single Thing a there occurs a

S

32 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

change a, this a is eo ipso, is of itself already be
sides a change of M, and has no need first to
become such a change. If then we conceive the
nature of M as always endeavoring to maintain its
own identity, M will now produce within itself a
second state p, which occurs as a compensation to
a, and in connection with it forms again an expres
sion of the whole nature of M.

It is not necessary, however, that this p should
appear in our observation as a change of a, but it
may appear as a change of the other individual
Thing b. And this would then be the procedure
which we conceive as an "action of a upon b."

§ 20. For the sake of elucidation the following
remark must be added : What this one Being, or
— according to the common expression — what 'the
Absolute' is, remains, at first completely indeter
minate. From the fact of the reciprocal action of
individual Things, the only conclusion at which we
arrived was that of the necessary unity of this
Absolute. What it is, is left for further determi
nation.

Furthermore, 'in designating Things as "modifi
cations of the Absolute," it is to be acknowledged
that such an expression contains no explanation
whatever of the precise sorUof unity which obtains

THINGS AS MODES OF ONE BEING. 33

between Things and the Absolute ; or of the sort
of dependence in which they stand with reference
to that Absolute. The expression has rather the
distinct negative meaning which denies the self-
dependence of individual Things. With something
of like sort we are frequently compelled to be sat
isfied. We are very often obliged, for the purpose
of removing a contradiction or of explaining an
occurrence, to postulate a fact, with respect to
which, however, we are never able to say how it
were possible for it to exist, or to have been
brought to pass ; — and this, even in case it can
be yet more accurately denned than the fact that
is just now assumed by us. We postpone to a
subsequent chapter whatever more there is to be
said upon this point.

Finally ; even the elasticity, or self-maintenance,
that we attribute to the Absolute, is used in a
preliminary way merely as a not unimaginable ex
pression to which different significations may be
given. It is not necessary to conceive of the reac
tions of the Absolute against the changes that
occur, as directed, in a merely mechanical way, to
the preservation of the status quo ; instead of this,
we might assume even an impulse of development
in progress towards a definite goal ; and that this
impulse, likewise, by means of any state a which

34 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

had originated either elsewhere or in the prosecu
tion of this purposeful activity, would occasion the
production of a further state p, by which such pur
poseful activity would be propagated further. Such
an assumption, made in a preliminary way, is a mat
ter of indifference. It is certain only that if there
is to be any reciprocal action whatever of individual
Things, there must be in the Absolute some such
consistent sensibility as is necessitated to produce
by means of a its consequence p, no matter whether
it be for self-maintenance or for progress.

CHAPTER II.

MORE PRECISE DETERMINATIONS OF THE ABSOLUTE.

§ 21. It is not our present design to dissect
logically the conception of an ' Absolute/ and to lay
down the conditions under which aught would be
held to be the Absolute or acknowledged as such.
As far as this is a matter of interest, it is too
difficult for the present moment. Just now we are
rather making the attempt to specify by name that
which is by its own nature adapted to fulfil the
conditions above alluded to ; and, of course, fulfil
them in such a way that it can be recognized as
the absolute Principle of that world which is given
in experience as bare matter of fact. Not to stray
too far abroad, we confine ourselves to the two
contraries between which it has long been custom
ary to distribute the consistence of whatever is
actual ; namely, Matter and Spirit.

§ 22. The assumption that the common substance
of the world is only matter, and matter as endowed
only with those properties which we in physical
science attribute to every portion of the same,

36 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

has probably never been made in earnest by any
one.

Such an assumption would take upon itself the
Difficult problem of showing how, from these mere
properties of space-filling, inertia, divisibility, and
mobility, all the rest of the world, and therefore
even its spiritual constituents, could be developed
as a matter of course, — that is to say, as the mere
consequences of such properties and without admix
ture of any other principle whatever.

Now Psychology has compelled us to the convic
tion that the states of motion — which can only be
considered as events that happen to masses of the
kind referred to above — are, as a matter of fact,
the occasions upon which there arise in tis spiritual
processes, such as sensations or feelings. But in
what way these occasions bring after them these
results so unlike themselves, is not only not a sub
ject of empirical knowledge, but it is even possible
to see that we can never reach the point where it
would be for us a matter of course that a mode
of the motion of these masses, however wondrously
intricate, would now have to cease to remain such,
and would be necessitated to transmute itself into
quite a different process, of sensation or of feeling.
According to all the axioms of which we avail our
selves elsewhere in the mechanical consideration of

SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL PROCESSES. 37

nature, from motions alone nothing but a transfer
ence, new distribution, propagation or arrest, of
motions can originate. A spiritual effect can be
attached to them only indirectly ; to wit, by means
of the action of the aforesaid physical processes on
a subject which, in its own nature, possesses that
capacity for the production of psychical processes in
which the motions themselves are wanting.

As here in the small, so also in the totality of
the world, a Principle of barely material nature
would be in no condition to produce from itself
the world of spiritual processes.

§ 23. Now although, each of these two series of
events, the spiritual and the physical processes, re
quires its own peculiar ' ground ' in reality, it i?
nevertheless not necessary that the 'ground' of
the two be divided into two different species o/
reality, in such a manner that there may be mate
rial Things devoid of all spiritual susceptibility, and
spirits devoid of all physical property and activity.
The rather may we first examine the thought that
both of these original properties are in fact insep
arably united in every existence ; and that, on ac
count of one of them, the Existent is able to appear
as, and to pass for, matter ; while, on account of
the other, contrariwise, it leads an inner life and
develops spiritual states within itself.

38 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

For the psychology of the individual being, this
assumption, on closer inspection, is shown to be un
productive. For the consideration of the world as a
whole it, at first, has more to recommend it ; and it
forms the text of the spirited descriptions in which
Pantheism glorifies the unresting life of the eter
nally One Substance, both corporal and spiritual,
which in ceaseless vicissitude fashions its individual
shapes, and lets them be absorbed again into itself.

The more definite formulating of these thoughts,
in the case of Spinoza and Schelling, arouses our
scruples against them. When the former (Spinoza)
ascribes to the Absolute innumerable kinds of doing
and acting (' Attributes ') that admit of no compari
son with each other, — of which, to be sure, only
two, namely Thought and Extension (cogitatio and
extensid) are familiar to us men, — such manifold-
ness obviates in some degree, at least for the
imagination, the difficulty which lies in the sin
gular circumstance, that just those two attributes
which are not reducible to each other are assumed
to form the essence of all the Existent. To find,
however, for both of these attributes a still ' higher
common root,' from which both issued as mere con
sequences, but did not themselves constitute such
root (so Schelling,) is a problem that surpasses all
human power of comprehension. It is indeed pos-

THE ABSOLUTE AS SPIRIT. 39

sible to fashion the name of such a ' First Absolute,'
which is neither real nor ideal, and )tet is the ground
of both. But it is not possible to discover any
thing in the entire world, of which it could be said
that it belongs to this thing, by virtue of its own
nature, to be esteemed as such a common root.

Since, therefore, the goad of this Dualism cannot
be got rid of, and a substance that is merely real
and acts blindly does not suffice for explaining the
world, we find herein one of the motives that lead
us to the opposite attempt, — to the pure Spiritual
ism which undertakes to comprehend the spirit
alone as truly existent, and all else as its product.

§ 24. The above-mentioned views, on being carried
out further, are wont by preference to invalidate yet
more the spiritual element of the Absolute. Such
views customarily announce this element as a rea
son that is 'per se unconscious ' ; that only in indi
vidual points of its extreme altitude, in individual
spiritual beings, raises itself to consciousness.

Such a form of conception as the foregoing ap
pears inadmissible. We have no right to strip off
from the Reason, which we invariably first learn
by experience to know as conscious, this predicate
of consciousness, and then persuade ourselves that
aught intelligible is left still remaining. Rather is

4O PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

it true that only one definite thought admits of
being connected with the expression, a reason act
ing unconsciously in the world ; to wit, the thought
that blind forces act in the world, which are not in
any respect reason, but which in fact act so that
their results are the same as those which a reason
acting in the world would have been compelled to
desire.

At this point the additional misfortune comes to
view, that the aforesaid proposition does not ad
mit of being proved with reference to any kind of
nature's action. For, in order to do this, it were
necessary to show that the results of her action are
the fulfilment of those absolute ends which reason
would have been, not merely able to propose to itself,
but compelled to propose as the ones justified in
the highest degree. If, on the contrary, we appraise
what is actually achieved in nature at a lower value,
and assume that it could have been still better, but
is not so, then we should be quite as much justified
in speaking of an treason acting blindly in the
world.

But apart from this, it is clear according to what
was said above, that a self-conscious reason could
never originate as a final product from such powers ;
rather should we have to be satisfied with uncon
sciousness throughout the entire world.

IMPERSONAL SPIRIT IMPOSSIBLE. 4!

It is wrong also to appeal to the analogy of our
own spirit, which, without conscious design, in
stinctively produces many of its rational works ;
such, for example, as those of art. We admit
the existence of such activities ; but we know
of them in absolutely no other case than that of
spirits whose nature it is to be self-conscious :
moreover, they appear in this case as actions ac
companying or following excitations and states
which were originally possible only in conscious
ness, but which in time vanish from consciousness
by reciprocal inhibition. How, on the other hand,
anything similar could take place in a subject, in
whose nature no consciousness had ever preceded
such activities, is not in the slightest degree com
prehensible.

§ 25. In connection herewith, the same view is
fond of speaking of an impersonal Spirit.

This, too, is much easier to say than by it men
tally to represent anything. It is quite correct
that, in our own spiritual life, we experience
manifold states in which all attention to our own
self, and all positing of that self over opposite to
an external world, are completely gone ; and we
so lose ourselves in the content of a sensation,
an idea, a feeling, or an effort, that we (so to

42 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

speak) are for a time nothing but this, as it were,
self-apprehending content, and not a subject which
had this content as an object of its consciousness
and distinguished it from itself.

But it is just as certain that we know such
states only as occurrences in an otherwise per
sonal spirit. They merely prove that it is not
necessary for the personal spirit at every moment
to think of itself as different from the content
which exactly fills out its consciousness. But they
cannot prove that anything similar is possible
without the personality, which, in such a case,
does not indeed mentally represent itself, but
none the less remains in fact the condition of
the possibility of such a self-forgetfulness. For
all the aforesaid sensations, ideas, or feelings,
in which we thus lose ourselves, are after all
never thinkable except as states of a definite,
self-identical and separate spiritual subject ; and
not the least consecutiveness, nor any coherency
according to law between these different spiritual
states, would be possible, unless the personal unity
of the spirit, which is by no means apparent in
them, were for all that the real ground which
unites them with one another.

IMPERSONAL SPIRIT IMPOSSIBLE. 43

§ 26. It. is further adduced in support of the
above-mentioned view that even the 'personality'
with which we have an acquaintance, — to wit,
that of the human soul, — first originates in the
course of its development. As originally given
there exist, it is said, only common spiritual capa
cities which, by means of favorable circumstances,
are aroused to expression in such manner that,
from the combination of these expressions, a
reflection directed toward self and a self-con
sciousness can also originate.

Just so, it is claimed, the Absolute at first is
impersonal Spirit. At this point views are di
vided : one makes the Absolute, just like the
finite spirit, attain to a personality of its own ;
the other makes it always remain of itself imper
sonal and only assume personal form in individual
ones ,of its products, that is in finite spirits.

The first view is for the present time a useless
curiosity. For us it would hardly be of any
value religiously, that the Absolute has attained
to personality at the conclusion of its develop
ment. On the contrary, an account of the way
in which this result is reached is demanded by
no religious need, but at the very most only by
speculative curiosity.

The other view would be compelled to assert

44 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

that the Absolute, of itself unconscious and imper
sonal, produces even in its blind development the
favoring conditions under which its own products,
the finite spirits, developed the personality denied
to itself. This is likewise an opinion that answers
to no religious need ; and least of all to the neces
sity of making intelligible from a single real prin
ciple, not merely the external course of the world,
but also its moral order, and the fact that it fur
nishes us with obligatory ideals of the Good and
the Holy.

In this way it is made apparent that very pow
erful motives impel the religious spirit, at last,
straight to the conception of a personal God, and
do not permit it to shrink back from the many
difficulties that lie in this conception also.

CHAPTER III.

THE METAPHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.

§ 27. We abandon the previous train of thought
and now consider the conception of God as, on
the basis of the incentives depicted in the last
chapter, by means of a long spiritual labor of the
centuries and essentially harmonious, it lies before
us perfected in the monotheistic religions. We
consider, first, the formal or metaphysical deter
minations.

That God is but One, and that polytheism is
therefore excluded, we pass with a bare allusion.
Many Gods, if each lived independent in his own
world, would be a useless and adventurous
thought ; but if they met each other with their
activity in one and the same -world, then they
would necessarily be finite beings, which acted
on each other and suffered effects from each
other in accordance with certain laws appointed
over them.

The religious nature does not understand the
' Unity of God ' in the aforesaid numerical mean
ing. It does not intend to affirm that God is
in fact only one, while by way of imagination

46 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

there might possibly be beside him still others
of his own kind. It means rather that God is
an only God ; that is to say, there is no superior
general concept of a God, of such sort that all
the predicates which might belong to the actual
God as an example of this concept of species,
would ensue from it just as much conditioned and
prescribed as in the case of every finite creature,
from whose concept of species ensues the limit
within which its properties and their reciprocal
combination can vary.

This absolute independence of the Highest Prin
ciple, which does not admit of its being in any
way subordinated to one still higher, — as though
it were effect or even mere example of the latter,
— will appear to us subsequently in the different
consequences which are to be drawn from it, as
one of the most important of the formal deter
minations.

§ 28. To a second formal predicate, that of
Unchangeableness, the religious feeling does not
attach the same meaning as seems to accord with
this title.

Perfectly unchangeable substances would, of
course, be philosophically useless assumptions even
for the explanation of nature ; but still, if one

THE PREDICATE OF OMNIPRESENCE. 47

chooses to avoid certain questions as to first prin
ciples, such substances always admit of being em
ployed for the intermediate explanation of processes
one from the other. A God, on the contrary, who
should be without changeable inner states forever
perfectly self-identical, would answer to no religious
need.

We need, in brief, a living God ; and, there
fore, by his ' unchangeableness ' nothing further is
meant than the consistency with which all these
inner states proceed from a nature that remains
the same. On this point we are in accord with
Metaphysic also, which requires of the nature of
all substances — even of such as are finite — only
this consistent exclusiveness of the series of forms
within which each being among them varies ; it
does not, however, require the monotony and rigid
ity of a perfect unchanging self-likeness.

§ 29. A third formal predicate, Omnipresence,
seems only at first sight to ascribe to God an at
tribute of spatiality such as we otherwise impute
merely to matter. The religious meaning of this
expression signifies rather the opposite.

Concerning finite things we know that if they
act upon each other immediately, it is only when
in spatial contact, and therefore where they are ;

48 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

on the contrary, if they act at a distance, it is only
mediately (by means of the propagation of their
first action to elements lying between) : or we know
that, if we concede to them an immediate action
from afar, this action at least has its maximum
when the nearness is greatest, and diminishes as
the distance increases.

Both limitations are supposed not to be true of
God. If he wills to act upon any element of the
world, then his activity is supposed not to have to
traverse any way, long or short, up to the point
where such element exists. Conversely, if an ele
ment of the world — for example, a finite spirit
with his prayer — wills to act "upon God, then it is
not necessary to traverse any way in order to dis
cover God, as though he had a definite position in
space. The rather is the activity of God everywhere
alike immediately and perfectly present, without dif
ference of degree.

Only this is meant by 'Omnipresence.' On the
contrary, no one ever had any interest in ascribing
positively to God himself, as one of his attributes,
the predicate of an infinitely great extension in
space. Quite the opposite, the simple design has
been held of denying with reference to him in
every respect that power to put under conditions
which space-limitation exercises upon the recipro
cal action of finite beings.

THE PREDICATE OF OMNIPOTENCE. 49

• § 30. The predicate of Omnipotence obviously
presupposes that conceptions of activity, either
barely transforming or else creative, have some
applicability to God ; and, under this presupposi
tion, it is then sought to exalt the power of God
absolutely above all bounds ; but in the ordinary
conception of this attribute such a result is not
obtained.

The simplest interpretation of Omnipotence, that
" God can do all possible," does not satisfy the
religious feeling ; we should thus obtain only the
relatively greatest one of those finite forces which,
collectively, are obliged to acknowledge certain lim
its of 'possibility' that stand fixed independently
of them. God would therefore be subjected to a
sphere of laws antecedent even to himself, which
would determine for him the free scope of his power.

The other explanation — " God can make even
the impossible to be possible and actual" — without
doubt expresses the real heart-meaning of the re
ligious feeling, but, in the aforesaid way of formu
lating it, appears absurd and unthinkable. For all
order, all consistency and all coherency of the world
appear to depend upon the limits between the
possible and the impossible being absolutely im
movable. If that which is of itself impossible can
once be made possible by any power whatever,

5O PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

then every sure foundation for making any conclu
sion whatever in relation to the coherency of the
world falls away.

But even this last explanation does the very
thing for which it finds fault with the first ; it
assumes that this distinction of the impossible
from the possible already exists independently of
God. God finds them both already determined and
authenticated by means of a truth that is independ
ent of himself ; and only in practice does the ca
pacity belong to him of withdrawing aught that is
subordinated to the self-authenticated conception
of the impossible, from the domain of this concep
tion, and of disposing it under the conception of
the possible.

The thought mentioned above is neither sound
in general, nor is such an omnipotence actually
unlimited. Rather must we arrive at such an
apprehension of God as makes God himself to be
the prime reason for the opposition of the possible
and the impossible having any significance at all
in the world of actual existence.

This thought, which is hard to define in the
present connection, we shall pursue further later
on. For our immediate purpose, that which is of
religious value in it permits of being most simply
and effectively expressed in the not quite correct

THE PREDICATE OF ETERNITY. 51

form that " God can do even the impossible."
This form at least states one thing clearly, — to
wit, that the impossible is no barrier for God.

§ 31. The predicate of Eternity in time depends
upon different motives ; first, as may be readily
understood, upon the need that we be able to re
gard what is to be our support and our consolation
as at no time ready to fail. But then, apart from
every religious need, eternal duration is aestheti
cally an imposing idea on accotfht of a sublimity
which is worthy of the Absolute Principle.

But the aforesaid expression, nevertheless, does
not itself depend upon our seeing any value or any
advantage in the bare filling-up of infinite time.
Just as we did not apprehend omnipresence as a
positive magnitude in space, but only as the nega
tion of all restrictive significations of space for the
action of God; just so, 'infinite duration' signifies
only the perfect independence of all those condi
tions that change in time, by which finite beings
are constantly confined within a definite tract of
their possible existence.

§ 32. Moreover ' Time ' also, like Space, is not
to be thought of as though it were a somehow
self-existing form, and as though God had only

52 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

the capacity of filling it up by his existence, how
ever far it may extend. But the difficult at
tempts which have been made to apprehend this
relation otherwise, — to consider time as in God,
or God as above time, — we must defer pro
visionally and make prominent another point in
stead.

God, as filling eternal time in a perfectly un
changeable way, would be a mental representation
of no service for religious interests. But if God
is living and the subject of change, — that is, if
anything whatever takes place within him, then
it follows that he is in every second instant an
other than he was in the first instant preceding ;
— unless it can be demonstrated on other grounds
in what way that ' Unity ' of his Being which is
for us indispensable is maintained continuously
through the course of his changes in time.

Now, at this point we derive from Metaphysic the
conviction that such ' Unity of a Being with itself '
certainly presupposes all its successive states to be
comprehensible as different consequences of one and
the same nature, and — in brief — to cohere together
in accordance with one and the same formula ; but,
likewise, the conviction that this presupposition is
not at all adequate. For if we also, the thinking
subjects, in the series of states a, o.lt «,, 03, . . ., every-

THE UNITY OF SELF-CONSCIOUS SPIRIT. 53

where observe the secondary effect of the original
nature a of a being ; and if we, on this account,
apprehend such a series as the history of one and
the same being a : still it is in this way by no
means yet proved, that this is more than a subjec
tive apprehension on our part ; — that is to say,
that the a, a1( 02, . . ., are not different successive
beings instead of only successive states of one and
the same Being (a).

If the latter conclusion is to be proved,' then only
the Being a itself can prove it ; and, of course, only
by itself doing what, previously, merely we, the
investigating subjects, have done. The Being a
must comprehend itself as a ' unity ' ; must, as
such, set itself over against the series a, 04, . . ., as
mere states of its own, and be able to unite these
successive states into one synchronous state by
means of recollection. Expressed in simple man
ner : In no respect can we assert of selfless
' Things,' but only of a self-conscious ' Spirit,' that
it remains in the course of its history one and the
same ; and, for the very reason that only it actual
izes the aforesaid unity by means of this deed of
self-consciousness. Of a 'Thing,' on the contrary,
— since it is merely subject to different states one
after another, although in a sequence according

54

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

to law, — there is no decisive test by which to
prove the fact and the means of its distinguishing
itself from a succession of different and merely
related Things.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE PERSONALITY OF THE ABSOLUTE.

§ 33. The paradoxical result of the previous re
flections is as follows : If all the predicates of
'unconditionateness' are to be valid for the Highest
Being, then one condition of this validity lies pre
cisely in the addition of a last formal predicate, —
namely, that of Personal Existence.

At the faith in this ' personality of God ' the
religious faculty, naturally enough, has not arrived
by the above-mentioned way, but from familiar
motives that lie nearer at hand. Against this
faith, however, philosophic reflection has subse
quently been very unanimously directed with the
assertion: 'Personality' is conceivable only in finite
spirits, and in this case rests on conditions which
can have no significance for the Absolute.

The above-mentioned investigations concerning
the possibility or impossibility of the assumption
of a ' personal God ' should be briefly repeated in
this connection.

§ 34. Two thoughts which we believe ourselves
obliged to distinguish, lie in the conception of 'per
sonality.'

56 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

First: No 'personality/ or — what can for the
moment pass as identical with it — no ' self-con
sciousness' is conceivable without our ascribing to
the spiritual subject, to which it is to belong, an
image of cognition or an image of representation,
of that which this subject itself is, and by means
of which it distinguishes itself from others. Since
these images of cognition, as well as those which
we project for ourselves from other objects, may
be more or less either correct or false ; therefore,
self-consciousness is by no means identical with
'adequate self-cognition.' We are rather to esti
mate the different degrees of its clearness and per
fection exactly according to the measure of the
conformity of its content with the actual nature of
the subject.

But the mental representation of the aforesaid pic
ture will always deserve the title of 'self-conscious
ness ' so long as it contains this second factor : —
to wit, so long as the other additional thought is
present, that this mental image is the image of
ourselves, and is by no means distinguished from
any other image merely in the same way that a
second object is distinguished from a third; but
that it is rather significant of somewhat which, as
'ego,' is to be placed in a fundamental and incom
parable opposition to all else. This second trans
action we consider in the first place.

DEVELOPMENT OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 57

§ 35. It is a very common opinion that ' self-con
sciousness ' is a spiritual phenomenon which develops
very gradually, and the origin and necessary con
ditions of which, accordingly, have a history.

Such an opinion we recognize as correct only in
relation to the first of the points distinguished
above. To wit : We doubtless do not arrive at the
knowledge of the properties of which we compose
the before-mentioned mental image, or at the con
tent of the image of ourselves which we construct
for ourselves, except by means of an accumulation
of external and internal experiences.

But in relation to the other point we cannot
assent to this opinion. It does not admit of being
shown intelligibly, how, in the course of the pro
jection of manifold mental representations, the
moment must necessarily at some time arrive, when
we should be compelled to consider one of these
representations, not merely as image of one object
which is distinguished from a second only in the
same way as the latter from a third, but precisely
as the image of our 'ego,' which stands in that
absolute opposition to every non-ego, so easily in
telligible but so difficult further to describe.

It will be found that the apparent ' origin ' of
self-consciousness in this sense always presupposes
the latent previous existence of its most essential

58 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

element, — namely, of a self-feeling in the same
sense.

§ 36. The materialistic attempts to generate self-
consciousness from all manner of motions in brain-
atoms returning upon themselves, are deserving of
no respect. As they are unable in general to de
duce any ' consciousness ' from motions, so is this
return of the motions also unable to generate any
.^^consciousness.

But, on the whole, the frequent philosophical
assertions — Personality can only be generated by
an activity of the ego proceeding outward, and by
a resistance of the non-ego which ' reflects ' this
'activity upon its own point of issue — are not a
whit better. These modes of speech correspond
to absolutely no demonstrable and real transaction.
Such an activity of the ego proceeding outward
nowhere admits of being designated by name.
The analogy that it is thrown back like rays of
light from the non-ego, is a mental image utterly
without real motif, and one under which it is not
possible to bring any actual procedure. The con
clusion finally, that this activity becomes ' self-con
sciousness ' by means of such ' reflection,' is a bare
subreption. For it is precisely by this means that
the mere return of the activity to its own point of

THE IDEA OF THE EGO. 59

issue is occasioned. But that it should now be
compelled to apprehend this point as its own self,
— and hence the precise origin of self-conscious
ness, — is a mere supplement of thought devoid of
all basis.

Only those attempts would deserve consideration
which aim to show how the soul originally pro
duces merely intuitive ideas, and then, in the course
of the reciprocal actions of these its individual
products, projects also conceptions of non-intuitive
subjects to which the aforesaid ideas belong as
predicates ; that it finally succeeds also in assign
ing by thought one subject to the totality of all
its inner states ; and that it thus generates the
consciousness of the ' ego ' as of that one which
is at the same time subject and object of the act
of ideation.

§ 37. It is to be alleged, in the first place, against
such attempts as the foregoing, that identity of
ideating subject and ideated object is the general
notion of every personality ; and that, therefore, ' I '
is not by this means distinguishable from ' thou '
and 'he.' And yet ' self -consciousness ' or 'person
ality ' obviously does not consist in subsuming
ourselves, together with all others under one and
the same general notion : but it consists in our

6O PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

distinguishing ourselves from all others within this
general notion.

It might now be said : ' I ' am subject and ob
ject of my thoughts, 'thou' art subject and object
of thine, etc. If distinguishing thus is not to bring
us round and round in a constant circle, then the
distinction between 'mine' and 'thine' — the one
we need to make — cannot be deduced from the
fact that the ' mine ' belongs to the ' I,' and the
' thine ' to the ' thou ' ; but between both of them
there must already exist a distinction that is abso
lutely clear, immediately given, and in need of no
deduction at all.

Such now is actually the case ; and the distinc
tion depends upon this, that we are in general
unable to think of any soul exclusively as a being
active merely in the formation of ideas. Every
soul is rather likewise capable of experiencing
feelings of pleasure and of pain, and of combining
these feelings with the content of ideas. Simply
by means of the fact that the idea of any state
whatsoever is combined with a feeling of pleasure
or pain, is such state authenticated as our own,
and no longer passes merely as the state of some
being or other.

We express the matter simply by means of the
following antithesis : Granted that some superior

FEELING AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 6 1

spirit possesses so perfect an intelligence as to
have a quite adequate cognition of all things, and
of its own being as well, and yet is utterly lack
ing in the faculty for pleasure and pain ; and that
every conceivable content is therefore as indif
ferent to it as is every other. Then such a spirit
will not merely cognize itself, but will also know
that in this case the cognizing subject is identical
with the object cognized. It will, however, at the
same time cognize the fact, that the case of such
identity may occur precisely so millions of times
in other beings ; and it will have no motive at all
to regard one of these cases — just that one which
occurs in its own self — as something special, and
to distinguish this case from those others ; it will
not, therefore, apprehend itself as an 'ego' set
over against some other as the 'non-ego.' On
the other hand, an animal of the lowest order,
that has scarcely any cognition of itself at all,
but has indeed feeling for pleasure and pain, will
never confound itself with the external world.
When it feels a smart, it will experience this
state as one belonging to itself alone ; and just
by this means will it feel itself as an 'ego' in
opposition to the whole world, although it would
not know at all how to specify precisely in what
its own being consists.

62 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

§ 38. We arrive at the same goal by another
way. We often hear it said : ' Ego ' and ' non-
ego ' are two correlative conceptions, neither of
which has in general any significance apart from
its opposition to the other. Therefore, — it is said,
— even the idea of the ' ego ' can originate only at
the moment when that of the ' non-ego ' likewise
originates. On this account, 'personality' is pos
sible only for finite beings which can be limited
by a non-ego.

The foregoing three propositions have really no
inner connection with each other. The first of
them must be pronounced perfectly absurd. Two
conceptions, each of which should have a meaning
only as a negation of the other, and should signify
nothing further, would both of them have no mean
ing at all, and would not even acquire any by their
being opposed to each other. One of the two
must necessarily be independently determined and
signify something.

On consideration of our case we find the ques
tion to be : If ' ego ' and ' non-ego ' were two
such conceptions, each of which contained barely
the negation of the other : by what means would
the soul then be induced, at the moment of the
simultaneous origin of both, to rank itself under
the conception of the ' ego ' rather than under that

THE TERM ' NON-EGO ' RELATIVE. 63

of the ' non-ego ' ; and what does it gain thereby if
it does the one and forbears the other ? To such
a question no answer is possible but just this ;
that one of the two conceptions signifies some
what independently determined, and on this ac
count the spirit applies it to itself, or does not so
apply it. Now, without going further, the expres
sions themselves show that this independent sig
nificance belongs only to the ' ego ' as positively
apprehended. What is meant by the term is
directly obvious : what, on the contrary, is meant
by the negative expression ' non-ego ' is in a pre
liminary way obscure ; and only thus much is
known about it, — namely, that it is not the 'ego.'
But this is just what would be achieved by the
aforesaid immediate feeling, by which the ego posi
tively apprehends what belongs to it as its own;
and, on the other hand, at first excludes from
'itself in a merely negative way what does not
belong to it.

§ 39. The above position being conceded, it is
still always possible to say : This ' feeling of the
ego,' although in itself of a definite content, which
does not primarily originate by means of its op
position to the non-ego, nevertheless, as a matter
of fact, cannot actually occur except at the moment

64 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

of such an opposition. To see colors is also an
original capacity of the soul, and could not be pro
cured for it by means of any waves of ether, if it
did not of itself possess the capacity ; yet we do
see colors solely in case waves of ether act on us.
Just so we feel ourselves as 'ego,' only in case an
opposed non-ego acts on us.

On this point it is now to be observed, that the
possibility of personality is in any case erroneously
attached to the opposition to a real non-ego ; as
though by means of it that being, which in conse
quence thereof then feels itself as 'ego,' became
really limited.

A reciprocal action with a real non-ego, of such
kind that this as such might enter into consciousness
and the ego thus be posited in opposition to this per
ceived non-ego, never occurs at all. In all sensations
and perceptions, what enters consciousness in con
sequence of such an influence, is invariably nothing
but some inner state belonging to the spiritual
being, — the sensation or mental representation it
self ; it is never the reality by means of which the
state is brought about.

From these inner states the entire subsequent
development of the spiritual life, and therefore that
of the personality, proceeds. It suffices for laying
the foundation of the latter, if a spiritual being has

THE EXCITATION OF THE EGO. 6$

the faculty of apprehending itself as 'I' in opposi
tion to its own states, which are only its 'states'
and not 'I.' A relation to an external reality is not
necessary ; and, consequently, ' personality ' also is
not bound to the condition of finiteness, — to wit,
to that of being limited by another reality of the
same kind.

§ 40. It may nevertheless always be said: Even
if, in a course of thought that is once in process,
this world of thoughts can serve as the non-ego
in opposition to which the thinking spirit knows
itself as the ego, still the first excitation of such
process of thought needs the influence from without
which can only be given by an actual reality affect
ing the senses. But this objection unwarrantably
carries over what takes place as a matter of fact
in the case of us men, as though it were indispen
sable to every personality.

In all attempts at a physical explanation of the
world, we are at last under the necessity of recog
nizing, not merely certain real elements, but also
certain motions of the same, as original data; and
it is of no advantage to search further for the
causes of these motions also, — since they could
only consist of still other motions ; nor is it con
ceivable how we are ever to get from a state of

66 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

equilibrium or rest as originally assumed, to dis
turbance of equilibrium or to motion.

Only the same concession, and no more, is re
quired in relation to the Infinite Spirit. It is not
to be thought of as somewhat which it were barely
possible to imagine, but as somewhat which is im
agined as eternally and unceasingly actual ; — some
what to which no such state ' of rest was ever
antecedent, as a state from which it would have
been obliged to be extricated by means of special
influence.

§ 41. All further inquiries concerning this mat
ter (as to what, perhaps, gives conditions to this
eternal movement of thought with respect to its
content and its direction) must, of course, remain
unanswered. Nevertheless it can be shown — not,
indeed, with a strictness that satisfies the demands
of science, but still in a manner intelligible to
imagination, — why the matter stands with us men
in that different fashion which we should not be
justified in wanting to carry over and apply to
God.

When treating of ' Omnipresence ' allusion was
made to the truth, that God, who is the truly
Existent in all Things and comprises them all as
mere modifications of his Being, stands in need of

FINITE SPIRITS DEPEND ON THINGS. 6/

no mediation through transmitted effects, in order
to be acquainted with the individual elements of
the world and the states belonging to them. Every
finite spirit, however, has its existence only from
a definite point of time onward, and has in the
coherence of all Things a determinate position in
the system, which assigns to it also a limited place
in space.

Now it follows from the above-mentioned truth,
that finite spirits, who have very much outside of
themselves which they themselves are not, stand
in absolute need of a real outside world and of its
effects, in order to attain to the development of
the life of thought possible to them.

It is intelligible, further, that finite spirits who
are not the Absolute itself but only modifications
or fragments of the same, and yet likewise possess
all their existence only through this Absolute, do
constantly, in case they reflect upon themselves,
suppose that they find an obscure germ in their
own being, — to wit, just this power of the Absolute
itself. This power it is which works through and
through them, and, without their own assistance,
prescribes for them the universal forms of their
spiritual activity, their sensation, imagination, judg
ment, etc. ; and which permits them only within nar
row limits to dispose further of this dowry, and

68 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

to pursue their special ends. That is to say,
therefore : ' Personality ' is in them only very im
perfectly accomplished. There remains something
back in the ego, which it cannot itself explain.
This is a fact which is corroborated by the course
of Psychology, wherein always at last the question
recurs, — What then really are we ? and can never
be answered to our perfect satisfaction.

Finally, it does not indeed admit of direct proof,
but is none the less a probable assumption, that
the laws of the psychical mechanism to which our
inner life is subjected are also connected with this
'finiteness.' From them it follows, however, that
our ideas inhibit one another ; that only a small
number of them is at any time present in con
sciousness ; that the forgotten ones return, indeed,
to our recollection in accordance with general laws,
but not always in a manner corresponding to our
momentary need. Hence it comes about that we
frequently over-hasten ; that we permit certain
measures of conception which are just present in
consciousness, partially to pass over into transac
tions which we later, when we have collected our
selves, may no longer recognize as our own ; that,
finally, we forget very much, and with increasing
age can no longer transport ourselves back into
the frames of mind, feelings and enthusiasms of
the earlier epochs of life.

THE INFINITE A PERFECT PERSONALITY. 69

All these hindrances of a perfect ' personality '
we can imagine as not existent in the Infinite
Spirit. On this account, we conclude with the
assertion which is exactly the opposite of the
customary one : Perfect personality is reconcilable
only with the conception of an Infinite Being ; for
finite beings only an approximation to this is at
tainable.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE CONCEPTION OF CREATION.

§ 42. We reserve the further concrete predi
cates, chiefly of an ethical kind, by which we
have to complete the still abstract conception of
an infinite personality, until after we have consid
ered the relation of this personality to the world.
And this relation itself we treat for convenience
under the three distinctive names of Creation,
Preservation and Government.

In relation to the first topic, we omit all ancient
and modern cosmogonies, such as intend to fur
nish an intuitive picture of the process of 'crea
tion ' and of the succession of particular creative
acts ; — a picture, which is in general impossible,
and in particulars not to be established with any
certainty. Our design is merely to show what
fundamental conceptions admit of being formed
concerning that relation of God to the world
from which the creation proceeds, or in which it
consists, or which is established by means of it.

We divide the essentially different views, which
are possible on this subject, into the three fol
lowing : the first of which attempts to trace the

CREATION NOT DEVELOPMENT. 71

world to the "consistent development of the
nature of God," the second to his will, the third
to a creative act.

§ 43. The first view, crudely elaborated and
satisfying merely to the imagination but not to
speculation, appears in all the emanation theories
of ancient and modern times. This we exclude
from our investigation.

On the contrary, the conception of the world
as a 'necessary, involuntary, and inevitable devel
opment of the nature of God,' which rests essen
tially upon the foundation of modern scientific
views, is worthy of consideration.

So far as this view endeavors to exclude a God
who rules without principle in blind arbitrariness,
it is correct ; and in this respect corresponds also
to our religious need. But we must resist with
the greatest possible decisiveness the further
apotheosis of the notion of ' development ' conse
quent upon this view, which it is customary just
now to express and to extol with such great em
phasis, as though it were identical, as a matter of
course, with all that is great and sublime and holy.

If it were only a question concerning a theo
retic explanation of the course of the world, then
such a conception would be satisfactory. But it

72 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

is wholly useless from the religious point of view,
because it leads consistently to nothing but a
thorough-going Determinism, according to which
not only is every thing that must happen, in case
certain conditions occur, appointed in pursuance of
general laws ; but according to which even the suc
cessive occurrence of these conditions, and conse
quently the whole of history with all its details, is
predetermined.

In such a mechanical contrivance there is no
place whatever for any 'freedom' or 'activity,' or
for an effort that shall produce aught which does
not originate from the mechanism itself. Religious
opinion assumes rather that, while there are uni
versal laws, without whose efficacy no ' design '
whatever would be able by definite means to attain
to a definite goal, there is however at the same
time, on the basis and in the domain of this reign
of law, a free, voluntary activity, which, by the
use and combination of the given elements acting
in accordance with law, produces that even, which
would have no existence without such activity.

The above-mentioned assumption has its diffi
culties. Until, however, it is shown decisively to
be impossible, the religious feeling will never re
turn to the thought of an ' undesigned, inevitable
development ' of the world from the nature of God,

CREATIVE WILL NOT MOMENTARY. 73

but will derive it from an act of the divine will,
without which it would not have existed.

§ 44. In speaking of the will of God, we natu
rally think first of the analogy of our own will ;
we may not however summarily transfer to the
former that which is peculiar to the latter.

Now the aims to which our will can be directed,
are only given to us finite beings progressively
by means of experience. Hence under the term
* will ' we conceive primarily of a spiritual activity
momentarily awakening, which is directed chiefly to
the production of a state not yet existing, or to
the change of a state already existing. Even in
those cases in which we ' will ' nothing new but
merely the status quo, we become conscious of
this act of will, at least distinctly so, only if
something threatens to disturb this state that has
been ' willed ' by us.

The foregoing conceptions are not applicable to
the creative will of God. Although the imagi
nation naturally represents the dependence of the
world upon the will of God in the most forcible
manner by making a period of time precede in
which even this creative will of God had no
existence ; still there is no ground whatever for
forming a philosophical tenet out of this view,

74 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

— harmless as it is to religion, — and for speaking
of an inner life in God, which, after this period,
has proceeded to the decision to create and to its
execution. Besides it would be impossible to fill
this space of time with anything but a delusive
history of development, in which the systematic
coherence of all the thoughts, by uniting which
we endeavor to interpret for ourselves the being
of God, would be fictitiously converted into a chro
nological sequence ; and by this means the nature
of God would for the first time become completely
realized.

This is, philosophically considered, erroneous,
and religiously devoid of all significance : we abide
therefore by the assumption, that the 'will to
create' is an absolutely eternal predicate of God,
and ought not to be used to designate a deed of
his so much as the absolute dependence of the
world upon his will in contradistinction to its in
voluntary ' emanation ' from his nature.

§ 45. With the foregoing assertion, however,
there seems to vanish something which we regard
as necessary for the religious conception of crea
tion ; to wit, a will which is constantly existent, has
no longer the character of a deed. In order that
will may be distinguished from that involuntary

WILLING CONSIDERED AS DEED. 75

development, from which we intended to distin
guish it, it seems necessary that some deed or
work be added to the act of will, by whose accom
plishment alone that which is willed truly becomes
the complete possession of the one who wills, and
at the same time becomes a reality. There is in
volved herein an undoubtedly genuine religious
need, but it is wrongly formulated in dependence
upon analogies derived from our own willing and
doing, which are not transferable to God.

In the first place as regards the efficacy of our
own will, we know psychologically that our 'will-
ing ' can never do anything else but produce a
definite psychical state within us (an idea, a feel
ing, a wish). With this state, as soon as it is
once in existence, an order of nature under the
control of general law, wholly independent of our
volition and hardly accessible to our intelligence,
has connected a definite result ; and this result
then originates without our being able to compre
hend the process of its origination or to con
tribute anything further to it.

Now we believe to be sure that, in the
performance of our corporal movements, we feel
at once the transition of our will to the limbs,
and that to a certain extent we observe the
will at its work, by which it brings to pass the

76 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

effect. But it is known psychologically, that we
actually feel in this case only the changes, which
the will, in a manner wholly beyond the power
of observation, has already produced in the limbs,
and from which, in a supplemental way, the sen
sations of weariness and exertion are produced in
the consciousness. These feelings therefore do not
show us how those movements are produced by
us ; but they only show how much disturbance our
organism has experienced, in consequence of those
movements having been attached to the action of
our will, in accordance with an order of nature
unknown to us.

If therefore we recognize as our own ' deed '
an effect which issues from us only in case we
have had, at the time of its accomplishment, all
the aforesaid feelings, then this analogy of the
human will cannot be transferred to God. For
this apparent activity in accomplishing something
beyond the bare action of willing is in truth
merely a witness to the powerlessness of our
will, which effects something only in case a
higher power has united with it the origination
of changes in external objects.

In this sense, therefore, we may not, in addi
tion to the creative will of God, still further
postulate a special creative deed ; but we must

REALIZATION OF THE DIVINE WILL. fj

be satisfied with the thought that the will of the
Supreme Being is without further procedure the
realization of that which He wills.

§ 46. But after all there remains a genuine
religious need, which was expressed, although
wrongly, by the demand for a divine work of
creation.

The value of the feelings, to which we referred,
does not consist in the fact that they brought to
our view the modus agendi of our will, but that at
each minutest instant they furnished us the knowl
edge as to how far the realization of its activity
had already advanced. Suppose, for example, that
we give our arm a wide swing, then we have at
each minutest point of time a new sensation which
discloses to us the magnitude of the breadth of
the movement already executed ; and therefore
the progress of our wills' mode of operation,
although in itself unobserved, is noted by us
from the beginning to the end of the move
ment. Now it is precisely because in such a
case our consciousness always has an immediate
feeling in conjunction with the product of the
will, that such movements appear as, in the strict
est sense, our own living deed. On the contrary,
in the case of the stone that flies away from the

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

hand at the completion of that movement of the
arm, although it has in fact got its velocity by
means of us, still we have no immediate sensation
of its further movement. While this movement,
therefore, as well as its subsequent effects upon
other objects, seem to us to be consequences of
our deed, they no longer seem to be our own ac
tivity itself.

Now it is the counterpart of just this, which
it is really intended to exclude from the concep
tion of the divine creative work. It is not to be
supposed that the act of will originates a bare
result in which the consciousness of the one who
wills were no longer present ; but it is to be sup
posed that the creative will remains in that con
stant feeling in conjunction with the state of its
product, which we men experience only on occasion
of the movements of our own body, and not on
occasion of the movements of external objects in
directly produced.

Now because this feeling in our case is psycho
logically connected with the effort and labor, which
are simply a consequence of our finite nature, some
have arrived at the false conception that this must
be so even in the case of God Himself; and on
this account have demanded the aforesaid special
work of creation.

NO PROCESS OF CREATION. 79

§ 47. The sum and substance of the preceding
discussion is, that the conception of creation prop
erly signifies nothing more than this ; that the world,
with respect to its existence as well as its content,
is completely dependent upon the will of God, and
not a mere involuntary ' development ' of his
nature ; that it proceeds, however, only from the
will and not from a special work of God, — this
latter conception being always applicable only in
cases where a will endeavors to realize its pur
pose in conflict with an existing world that is
independent of it : whereas of God we in fact
assert that He " has created the world out of
nothing," — a strange expression, which strictly
interpreted means to say, in a merely negative
manner, that there is nothing out of which God
constructed the world ; and which then whimsi
cally makes this Nothing appear again as a sort
of 'stuff' from which it is created. •

There can be no consistent description of the
process of creation, for the reason that there is
no such process. Such process in fact, whenever
the attempt has been made to imagine it, has
always presupposed in turn the existence of
another world, and of certain forms of happening
already in use in it.

In regard still further to the content of crea-

8O PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

tion, it would be from a religious 'point of view
an object of interest for us, only in case we con
ceive withal of a plan which is to be realized in
the world ; and this subject is to be discussed
under the head of the conception of 'Government.'

CHAPTER VI.

OF PRESERVATION.

§ 48. To ascribe the preservation of the world
to a special divine activity, may seem to be a super
fluous thought. In fact, the common opinion of
natural philosophy amounts to this, that the world,
when once in existence, maintains itself as a mat
ter of course by the efficacy of the laws which
have once gained prevalence in it. The utmost
that is conceded is, that the origination of the
world may be the object of an action, but not its
continuation after it has once originated.

The foregoing opinion only serves to remind us
that we really have already before us, even with re
spect to creation, a difficulty of which, in the ordi
nary reflection, we are less sensible only in relation
to this conception of preservation. To wit, the ques
tion is raised, in what way God, in the action of
his will, has arrived at a decision concerning that
which should be or should not be.

The readiest answer, — namely that He has
summoned into actual existence only that which
is in itself possible, — as well as the other
answer, — that He has summoned into actual

82 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

existence the best among many possible worlds,
both contain the thought that what is good or
not good, possible or not possible, has already
been decided independently of the will of God ;
and therefore that, after all, there precedes God,
the Supreme Principle, a certain realm of eternal
truths as a still higher Principle, to which He
together with his activity is now obliged to
become subordinate.

This strange idea is not improved by the
immediate reply that, in the use of a distinction
frequently made, we designate those ' eternal
truths ' merely as the ' content of God's under
standing,' and not as a necessity foreign to Him
and which stands over against Him objectively.
No improvement of the idea is attained so long
at least as we have in mind in this connection
our own spiritual life, in which of course all
these general truths appear as something pro
ceeding from a higher power and not connected
with our personality ; or, at all events, as some
thing not deducible from it.

Concerning these difficulties we must make the
following somewhat detailed reflections.

§ 49. It has already been observed, in dis
coursing of the possibility of the reciprocal

LAWS NOT INDEPENDENT OF GOD. 83

actions of the elements of the world, that the
prevalent method of speaking of the "authority
of general laws of nature over Things " has noth
ing properly corresponding to it in the actual
state of the case.

Laws can exist only in a twofold manner : they
may either exist at the instant when they are
obeyed, as the activity of the elements them
selves, which seem to follow them ; or, in the
observing spirits which compare the events, as
conscious rules for the combination of the ideas,
by which we (the observing spirits) are enabled,
in accordance with the reality, to determine
beforehand from given states those which suc
ceed them.

On the contrary, laws never exist outside, between,
beside, or above the Things that are to obey them.
And if we ourselves should intend to assume
that a ghost-like existence, of a sort that is wholly
beyond the power of representation, belongs to
them, the question would be left the more un
answerable, how in that case they went to work
to secure obedience from the elements which were
wholly foreign to them.

This first mode of representation, then, accord
ing to which God even would have 'found at
hand ' a sum of self-existing truths, must be wholly
abandoned.

84 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

§ 50. The first modification of the thought we
are considering, to the effect that the eternal
truths were nothing else but the mode of the
action of God's own nature and intelligence, we
found, just at the close of the last paragraph but
one, to be not altogether satisfactory.

To wit : we find in ourselves such truths (as
for example the law of identity, or the simple
geometrical intuitions, or the fundamental ethical
judgments of our conscience), as do not present
themselves to us, at any rate when considered
individually, as something foreign to our nature,
but as the mode of our own experience or the
form of our own activity. But we find several of
such truths within us, and we find no connection
between them. For, from the fact that the propo
sition of identity is a necessity of our thought, it
by no means certainly follows that we must also
have an intuition of space, or must make a distinc
tion between good and evil. Hence the aggregate
of these truths seems to us after all to be some
thing foreign to our own being, and not deducible
from it; or at least something whose origin from
it cannot be known.

If it were thus with God, it would seem to us
as if He met with these eternal truths, not to be
sure as forces external to Himself, but as some-

ETERNAL TRUTHS DO NOT LIMIT GOD. 85

thing within Himself, which He could regard only
in the light of a gift bestowed upon Him as it
were.

Now we can of course never give a positive de
scription of the manner in which those truths, that
to our discernment are disparate, are united with
each other in God, and are experienced as belong
ing together in the unity of a single thought. But,
for all that, there is no contradiction in the as
sumption that with God it is so ; and that only
we finite beings, who are able to possess nothing
but fragments of the whole of truth, fail to grasp
the inner connection by which these truths are
perfected into one whole.

§ 51. The above-mentioned view of the case also
often proves unsatisfactory. The assumption, that
the eternal truths are the proper modus agendi of
the divine understanding itself, has always seemed
to many to involve after all a limitation of his un-
conditionateness and omnipotence. In such case
we should not be content with anything less than
the statement that God did not possess this modus
agendi, but that He first bestowed it upon Himself.
Indeed even in such case it might perhaps still be
doubted, whether in the choice of such a modus
from among many that are conceivable and now

86 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

excluded, there were not after all again involved a
limitation of his unconditionateness, although a
self-chosen limitation.

In one view of the matter, however, it may be
remarked that in this way the conception of God
loses all content whatever ; and that, instead of
conceiving of that concrete Being to whom uncon
ditionateness in respect to his conduct belongs,
we have made the empty conception of uncondi
tionateness itself the subject or the principle of
the world. To do this is, fundamentally consid
ered, just the same mistake that is made when
we content ourselves with the abstract expressions,
the ' One,' the ' Existent,' the ' Absolute,' etc., and
suppose that by them we have expressed the Su
preme Principle, instead of designating by name or
representing that which deserves to be acknowledged
as the Real Principle of the world, because it pos
sesses in virtue of its own concrete nature the
alleged predicates.

But the misunderstandings that arise in this con
nection admit of being analyzed somewhat further
in detail.

§ 52. If, in the first place, we see a limitation of
omnipotence in the fact, that even omnipotence,
from its very beginning onward, follows a definite

CAPACITY NEVER INDETERMINATE. 8/

modus agcndi, then we may in the next place be
reminded that we in fact never mentally represent
even any finite 'power' or 'capacity' as a predicate
which would inhere in a Thing without connection
with its remaining 11 predicates as an (n+l)th.
Just as little do we represent such a power as a
' being- able in general,' which would still have no
direction whatever ; so that it would only be de
termined subsequently by secondary circumstances,
what sort of activity this ' being able ' will exercise,
and with reference to what objects.

On the contrary every ' power ' or ' capacity ' is
conceivable only as one that is quite definitely
fixed in reality. And the abstract conpeption of
'capacity in general,' which we may form just as
legitimately as the conception of ' motion in gen
eral,' can just as little signify something real as can
the latter before it is again furnished with a ' direc
tion ' and a 'velocity,' from which, in the forma
tion of the general conception, the abstraction was
made.

If now this conception of 'power' is to be ex
alted to that of 'omnipotence,' it cannot be ac
complished by omitting every such act of determi
nation as would fix some modus agendi ; but only
by representing just this modus as one so compre
hensive, that all actual capacities and powers

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

whatever, which appear in the world, originate from
it. In that, we should have substituted the mere
general conception of power for the supreme actual
Power. But still further, omnipotence, even in this
case, cannot be conceived_of as a predicate addi
tional to the rest of the predicates of God ; but it
is only an expression for the efficacy in action of
just these predicates, and therefore of that concrete
nature of God in which all reality is comprehended.

§ 53. We may now be tempted for the last time
to inquire : If God's omnipotence is only co-exten
sive with his nature, why then has God -this de
terminate nature a and not another b or c? and
does not the fact that He is not this b or c
involve again a limitation of his being ?

In support of such thoughts an appeal is also
made perhaps to the celebrated proposition " Omnis
determinatio est negatio" ; the meaning of which is
often enough thought to be, that all determination
is limitation, because it is the product of the nega
tion of innumerable other possibilities.

Thus understood, the proposition would be
thoroughly false. It is only in cases where a com
pletely disjunctive judgment is already validated,
in accordance with which a subject s must be
either a or b or c, that the affirmation of a can

NEGATION AND AFFIRMATION. 89

originate from the negation of b and c. And even
in such cases this negation ia» nothing more than
a reason for our cognition, from which we conclude
that s is a, but is not a reason in reality why s is
actually a. That is to say ; It is not the real de
termination, but our subjective certainty of its
existence, that follows from the negation of other
possibilities.

But in other cases, as a rule, the above-men
tioned proposition can only signify, not that every
determination originates from a negation of that
which is different from it, but that it is accessory
to, or consequent upon, such negation.

If we thus apprehend the proposition, the doubt
above suggested will subside ; the doubt, namely,
whether after all there is not again involved a limi
tation of a, in the very fact that something can now
no longer be b or c, because it is originally a. This
thought has some significance for us finite beings,
to whom a determinate nature a is given, beside
and outside of which the natures p and -y of other
beings — as for example those of other species of
animals — are likewise met with as actualities. Since
then we are unable to transpose ourselves out of
our own nature into the p and -y foreign to us, this
incapacity seems to us a limitation which prevents
our enjoyment of a good that actually exists.

QO PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

But the foregoing analogy is not transferable
to the nature of God. For this nature a is pre
cisely such an one as is not the product of a
still higher nature M, among the consequences
of which it would find itself coordinated with
the other equally real products b and c : and
at the same time excluded from them. But out
side of this a nothing exists : a is rather the
primal source of the sum-total of reality ; and,
indeed, a source of such sort that, owing to its
concrete nature, thinking beings also are met
with in this realm of reality, who are able to
distinguish a from a never-existent, but con
ceivable non-a ; and who now are able to raise
the wondrous question, why all the world bears
the character of this a and not the other char
acter of a non-a.

The noteworthy capacity for denying in thought
what actually exists, — a capacity which is itself
only a product of the laws that are valid in
actuality upon the basis of that a, — misleads
us into the acceptance of this strange and utterly
unthinkable idea : before God was and before the
world was, there was already a multitude of coor
dinate, possible future Gods and worlds ; and there
was possible and necessary a choice between them,
by which the total character a of the actual God,

GOD AND ETERNAL TRUTH. 91

and of the actual World was established ; but at
the same time there was by this means intro
duced a limitation of both of them, because now
they could no longer be b and c.

§ 54. We arrive at the same result, if we
undertake to think through one of the two fol
lowing propositions : ' God has only recognized the
truth ' ; or, 'He has created it.'

Arbitrary statutes admit of being ' recognized '
in so far as our transactions are willingly or
reluctantly accommodated to them. But in
thinking we can only ' recognize ' as truth that
which accords with the laws of such thinking, —
that is, with its modus agendi. And thus even God
would have been able to ' recognize ' any ' truth '
that he met with, as truth, only because it had
already belonged to the intrinsic nature of his own
thought.

Moreover statutes of all sorts admit of being
'made,' and a practical obedience to them may be
enforced : but to make something which, after it is
done, should constitute a truth, is only possible in
case the productive energy itself is already of itself
fulfilling, as rules of its own action, precisely the
same conditions as those that are conditions of the
truth to the intelligence associated with the energy.

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

By both paths, then, we return to the propo
sition, that eternal truths are neither antecedent
norms nor subsequent products of the divine activ
ity ; but are nothing else than the actual form
of this very energizing ; and that, in the special
sense of the word ' truth/ they appear as com
mands, which something not yet existent must
satisfy, only in our subjective reflection, in case
we attempt to bring the future into combination
with the present.

§ 55. The foregoing considerations are con
nected with the conception of the Preservation
of the world in the following manner.

The common view of nature, in modern times,
either asserts that God indeed created the world
at the beginning, but after it was created left it
to itself and to the further development of the
general laws which He established in it. Or, in
the other case, since the act of creation can
never be made apprehensible, such act is entirely
left out ; and it is simply asserted that the world
which lies ready-made before us, is maintained
by the constant prevalence of its general laws,
and needs no divine support.

In opposition to this the proposition of religion
is heard : " Preservation is continual new-creation."

SUBSTANCE AS INDESTRUCTIBLE. 93

It is not conceivable that this can be intended
to mean : The world of the next instant is, as to
its content, entirely new and foreign to that of
the preceding instant. So far from this, we
naturally accept the assumption that, in the divine
activity, there is unity and coherence ; and, for
this reason, the creative act of the next instant
also is a consequence of that of the preceding.
But, nevertheless, the aforesaid proposition would
deny that the world of one instant perpetuates
itself by its own agency and by its general laws
into the next instant.

For that very reason it will be superfluous, as
regards all special inquiries into the coherence of
the processes of nature, to come back to the 'co-
working of God ' ; and it is sufficient to speak of
the consecutive order of nature which He has
established. Still, in our idea of the whole, we
must decidedly guard against the view which speaks
of an actual self-sufficiency of nature, and which,
from this as from a secure stand-point, exercises a
negative criticism in opposition to the religious in
tuitions.

It must rather be asserted that if corporal 'sub
stance ' is indestructible, it is not so by its own
agency or in accordance with a claim to the right
growing out of its own nature, but because the

94 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

divine creative power preserves it continuously at
each instant ; and that if, in the course of nature,
the Same forces always act according to the same
laws, this does not come to pass because these
forces were of themselves eternal and these laws
of themselves efficient, but because it lies within
the plan of the divine efficiency to employ, at each
instant of the course of the world, this number of
homogeneous actions, as means for the production
of more composite products.

In a word : The entire interior consistency of
the cohering order of nature, upon which the
natural sciences are supported, is conceded as a
matter of fact ; but taken as a whole and at large
it is regarded as a system of mutually condition
ing actualities, utterly dependent upon the divine
power ; so that ultimately, therefore, the World
does not preserve itself but is preserved by God.

CHAPTER VII.

OF GOVERNMENT.

§ 56. We can only speak of Government in
case there' are elements that, with a certain inde
pendence of behavior on their part, threaten to
withdraw from a plan prescribed to them, which
the governing principle intends to realize.

The considerations to which we last referred
therefore seem to leave no place for the application
of this conception. Indeed, in proportion as these
considerations themselves make the preservation
of the world dependent upon the constant action
of the will of God, do they obscure the thought
to which we would firmly hold; — namely, that the
World is not a mere immanent development of
God, but a product of his will.

In order that this contradiction may have any
significance, the product of the will, after it is
created, would have to possess a certain independ
ence. Or, to use a well-known mode of expres
sion, the world would have to be 'outside' of God
and not merely a process 'in' Him.

We need not adhere to these last mentioned
expressions in terms of space which would lead

96 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

to such endless and perfectly empty disputes ; but
the inquiry must be made as to what must really'
constitute that 'mode of behavior' which it is sup
posed may be figuratively designated by these
expressions. And to this question the only answer
will probably be, that only that Reality possesses
the independence obviously here intended, which
is able to have its own states, — such, that is, as
are not immediately states of the ' Universal Sub
stance ' ; and to initiate processes which do not
proceed from that Substance.

If now we consider how these abstract postulates
might be fulfilled, we find but one Reality which
actually fulfils them ; namely, spiritual life.

A being which has experience of itself as an
individual subject for its own states, and which
distinguishes these states from those of other
beings, may, it is true, be nothing whatever as to
its entire existence but a product of the Infinite
Being. But after it is once in existence, it is, by
the very form of its existence, by this conscious
ness which places itself in relation to itself, dis
tinguished as an individual ego from the very
Absolute, that in reality conditions it, and that
now, as posited over against itself, belongs to the
non-ego. And by this act, or by this form of its
existence, does it possess that relative independ-

NATURE OF THE 'WORLD-STUFF.' 97

ence which we designate when we say that it is
'outside' of God.

§ 57. Hence it would follow (what we now
remark only incidentally) that, with respect to
our entire view of the World, we find ourselves
in the presence of an alternative.

If spiritual life is the only form in which we
can conceive of a reality that is not a mere state
of some other real being, then our current idea
of a motionless, blind and lifeless 'stuff,' which
should exist outside of us, can signify nothing
that is actual.

We must either assume, as the Idealist does,
that what we regard as such a ' stuff ' has no
existence external to spirits, but that the self-
coherent semblance of such a 'world-stuff' (com
pare especially J. G. Fichte), is merely produced
within these spirits, and for them only, by a
universal power which works in all spirits. Or
else we must conclude, in entire agreement
with the Spiritualists, that each atom of that
which appears to us as mere 'stuff,' is after all
something better than this ; that is to say, it
participates in the most general characteristic of
the spiritual life : and this characteristic consists
in somehow (either in distinct consciousness or in

98 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

the mere feeling of pleasure and pain) 'being for
self,' and not in merely forming an object of con
templation for others.

It is only the common realistic opinion on this
subject that would seem to us impossible, accord
ing to which an entirely ' selfless stuff ' would be
just as actually existent outside of us as we are
wont commonly to represent it.

There is no doubt that either of the two fore
going views may be formed into an entirely con
sistent apprehension of the world. But from the
religious point of view, we are not necessarily
required to choose between them.

§ 58. If however there were in existence noth
ing more than an indefinite number of such inde
pendent, created beings, there would still be no
foundation for the conception of a government of
the world. It would still be thinkable, that the
world might develop itself in a perfectly impertur
bable harmony ; and the problem for all spirits
would consist in merely looking on, and in con
sciously and admiringly rejoicing in this fact.

In point of fact, however, religious sentiment
has never been satisfied with this, but has always
insisted, at the outset very obscurely although vig
orously, that something new also must happen in

POSSIBILITY OF SOMETHING NEW. 99

the world, — something that is not a mere conse
quence of what has gone before ; — and that there
must exist in individual spirits just this capacity
to initiate a new series of events ; and therefore in
brief a freedom of acting or primarily of willing,
by which they separate themselves from the Uni
versal Substance in a still more decided manner
than by their mere 'Being for self as relatively
independent beings.

In this way then has the problem originated
which leads to the conception of a government.
For only after this is there any possibility of
-events by which the continuous realization of a
predeterminate plan of the world might be inter
rupted.

§ 59. Even the above-mentioned demand for free
dom would have no religious significance, if it were
directed in a merely formal way to the possibility
of new beginnings. For that something new hap
pen in the world, has of itself no more value than
that the whole course of the world be an unin
terrupted, consecutive process of development ; in
which of itself also, as we have already previously
suggested, there is involved nothing that is worthy
of adoration.

But we know surely, that we only demand this

TOO PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

formal ' freedom ' because we regard it as the con-
ditio sine qua non for the fulfilment of ethical com
mands, whose obligatory majesty we consider to be
the most absolute certainty and one that needs
no derivation from any other source whatever.

This conviction is the absolutely fundamental
point upon which the entire religious character of
our view of the world depends. And for him who
does not directly experience and acknowledge this,
all questions of religious philosophy are altogether
superfluous.

§ 60. The ideas of freedom are not induced by
speculation ; but they rest entirely upon the fact
of that penitence and self-condemnation in which
we believe we find the immediate assurance of the
possibility, that the choice, whose failure is now
repented of, might have been reached even sooner
than it was.

This idea is, in an obscure way, the first and
most natural, the one that has precedence in hu
man culture. It was not till a later period that the
scientific contemplation of nature disclosed the con
ception of a ' necessary causal connection,' and then
extended it over the whole course of the world,
so that now the idea of freedom seems like a
strange exception and as such is denied, It is

POSSIBILITY OF FREE CHOICE. IOI

acknowledged that even the ethical ideals origi
nate in the mechanical course of psychical develop
ment. But how much influence they have upon
our action, depends entirely upon the involuntary
states and movements within our own interior
being. It is therefore due to a process of nature,
that the impulse to good actions, or even to bad
actions, preponderates within us ; and the mechan
ical conditions for such result may be strengthened
by a correct or by a perverted education. But,
to be consistent and candid about it, an action in
the proper sense, such as would issue from our
own ego, will then no longer exist. And even the
inducement to all such reflection — that is, the feel
ing of penitence — will be regarded as a disagree
able state, about like a feeling of sickness ; and
it will be maintained that the wish involved in
this feeling, — the wish that one had acted differ
ently, — gives no assurance whatever of this hav
ing been possible at an earlier moment.

Such views as the foregoing are not to be
got at by speculation ; they involve no contra
diction of cognition. If they are abandoned, it
can be done only upon the basis of an undemon-
strable belief, that after all there is directly dis
closed in the aforesaid self-condemnation, the pos
sibility of a free choice, without which 'the bad

102 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

conscience' and the pain of 'penitence' would con
tinue to be totally inexplicable phenomena in a
rational order of the world.

§ 61. We cannot think of doing more than refute
the objections against the possibility of the con
ception of freedom ; we cannot think of proving its
actual validity.

Now, in the first place, it should be remembered
that 'freedom' and 'causality' are not absolutely
opposed to each other, but are compatible with
each other; that is to say, the former would pos
tulate the latter, but of course the latter would
not the former. For every free beginning of an
action must demand that, in the world into which
it intends to introduce an event a, all Things
cohere firmly and according to law ; so that from
a only the intended result z can follow, and not
any other at pleasure. Consequently 'freedom' is
only to be accepted in the sense of an influence
upon a world causally ordered.

Since however the free action ought to be sub
jected to an ethical judgment, it must be added
that the decision with respect also to what is
'good' or 'bad,' is made in entire independence
of the will. Therefore, freedom also is to be
accepted only in the sense of a choice between

POSSIBILITY OF UNCONDITIONED CHOICE. IO3

what has value and what has not value, — perma
nently, and for its own sake.

The further objection, — namely that a freedom,
in the sense intended by us, that is in the disrep
utable sense of a completely ' unconditioned ' choice
between a and non-a, is in respect of the process
of its action incomprehensible, — is likely to be mis
understood : it does not raise a special obstacle
such as positively to prohibit the conception of
freedom, but simply and absolutely denies its valid
ity. For, assuming that there is freedom, it is
involved in its very conception, that the process of
the decision it makes cannot be a ' comprehen
sible ' one ; because this would presuppose that the
decision follows as the consequence of a succes
sion of reciprocally conditioning circumstances, and
therefore does not follow freely. If now offence
is still taken at this incomprehensibility of freedom,
it may be borne in mind, that the process of causal
action would be no less obscure, and the fact of
something effectuating something else, as regards
its succession of events, just as incomprehensible.

If then it is still argued, that at all events such
a capacity of choosing arbitrarily and blindly be
tween a and non-a is irrational and unworthy of
any respect, it is to be considered that we in
fact neither commend nor venerate the 'freedom '

IO4 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

that has not yet decided. It is only the ' will '
which is no longer free, but has made its decision,
that merits commendation or censure. ' Freedom '
is simply the conditio sine qua non for the possibility
of the subsequent valuation of the determinate
act of willing.

For although we may concede that it is just the
volition itself which we commend or censure, while
we do not demand that this volition itself be re
peated once more, still we after all tacitly pre
suppose in such a case, that just this ' volition '
from the very outset has the significance of a
decision sprung from 'freedom.' If this is denied
us, and the will is defined as an emotion which
originates mechanically within us, then we deny
that ethical predicates are at all applicable to the
will as a mere process of nature.

On the other hand it is objected, that the Good
ought to be chosen for its own sake, but not in an
entirely arbitrary manner : a blind freedom there
fore would be just as little conducive to actions
which may be judged ethically. In reply to this
it is to be observed, that we can never speak of a
' blind ' will ; since all volition belongs to the same
spiritual subject, which on the other hand is en
dowed likewise with the consciousness of the pos
sible modes of its action and of their values. If

VARYING INFLUENCE OF WILL. IO5

such a subject in possession of this consciousness
makes a choice, its choice at all events is not
' blind.' But there is no necessity for apprehending
the presence in consciousness of the correct esti
mate of the possible modes of action as at the
same time a determining influence which neces
sarily conditioned the direction of the will.

One difficulty however remains. The act of voli
tion, although itself not causally conditioned, would
still, if there is to be any corresponding result,
be obliged to have a varying influence upon the
existing states of the mind. And now the ques
tion comes, as to the means that determined the
intensity with which the ' freely ' originated will
either overcomes the states of passion that strug
gle against it, or else yields to them. It would
be a somewhat sophistical piece of information
to affirm unqualifiedly that only the volition, but
not the accomplishment of it is free ; and indeed
to carry this to such extent, that not only the pos
sibility of the execution of an external action when
willed would be doubtful, but that even the inner
states of the mind also would form for the will a
sort of external world, in which it could validate
itself only in case the states of the same are more
over in harmony with its demands.

In a somewhat indefinite form this thought ap-

IO6 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

pears in the sphere of religion : we pray God to
grant strength to the well-disposed but weak will ;
we therefore certainly ascribe volition to the hu
man spirit, and only doubt about its needful
power.

A decisive judgment upon this question it is
hardly possible to find. To assume an entirely
free 'volition' and to include in the conception
of it its complete ineffectiveness seems almost
absurd : on the contrary the other extreme opin
ion is a very bold one and hardly to be accepted ;
namely, that just as the will freely determines its
own direction, so also is it able to determine its
own intensity, and that it is always the willing
spirit's own fault, if it has too little intensity of
volition to overcome the involuntary psychical im
pulses to action.

§ 62. According to the entire foregoing discus
sion, acceptance or rejection of freedom will ulti
mately be a matter of decision, and not the result
of a theoretical demonstration.

It is only on the assumption, that we do not
hold the speculative difficulties which we encounter
to be insuperable, and that we therefore believe in
the freedom of spiritual beings, that there is any
further interest in discussing the conception of a
government of the world.

GOVERNMENT AND PRESERVATION. IO/

Government, in contradistinction to Preservation,
could only consist in immediate influences of God
upon the order of nature, such as were not included
in the proper consequences of this order. And
these influences could only be occasioned by the
free actions which threaten to turn the prog
ress of the world's course aside from a prescribed
line.

Such divine influences are comprehended under
the name of Miracles.

In order to estimate this conception, it must
not be defined as an abolition of the order of
nature in general, or of the general laws of na
ture. For then the conception would not at all
correspond to what we mean by it. ' General ' sus-
spension of the 'laws of nature' would only occa
sion a chaos which is utterly beyond the power
of representation.

The ' miracle ' however is supposed to be a
definite event, in which, in a single instance and
with reference to definite things and for definite
moments, the physical laws are invalidated which,
contemporaneously or previously and subsequently,
continued to be valid with respect to all other
things.

This however means nothing but that the nature
a of some one element experiences a change into

IO8 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

o, by which it now no longer falls under the do
main of the natural law g, but under that of an
other -y ; and in consequence of this it no longer
produces the ordinary effect, but another and ex
traordinary one. According to this definition, there
fore, the miracle in general would involve no
alteration whatever of the laws of nature, but
only the change of one or more magnitudes to
which those laws are applied.

Now it cannot be disputed, that such a change
of the natures of single elements by the influence
of a divine intervention is just as thinkable as it
would be if accomplished by the intervention of
another, and that a physical force. And particu
larly under the presupposition, that the Things of
nature are not independent, but are products con
stantly supported by a divine power, does this
general conception of the miracle contain, on the
one hand, all that can be demanded in the re
ligious interest, and, on the other, nothing that
would be theoretically contradictory or impossible.

§ 63. There is no cause for overmuch rejoicing
on account of this proof of the mere abstract
conceivableness of the miracle. On the contrary
it must be lamented, that we lack every decisive
scientific regulative for determining the limits,

MIRACLES AS RELATED TO SPIRITS. IOQ

within which we may have confidence in this
possibility of thought, as valid in actuality. Only
very indefinite thoughts upon this question admit
of being presented.

That the order of nature for its own sake is in
need of no corrections, is obvious. And the
changes, which the free actions of spirits are able
to produce in it, are so narrowly limited and may
be so easily compensated for by the general
economy of nature, that even for their sake
' miraculous ' interventions are incredible.

Although, on the other hand, we feel a certain
aesthetic inclination to behold great crises of
history, in which a new phase of spiritual devel
opment has its beginning, made glorious by
extraordinary changes of physical conditions also ;
still we must acknowledge that we can prove
neither the necessity nor the real benefit which
would result from satisfying our fancy by this
summons of the miraculous.

It seems therefore, that it is not at all nature
directly, but primarily the inner life of the world
of spirits only, that forms the object, to which
immediate interventions in the government of the
world could have relation ; and this in such manner
that the interventions would not make use of the
individual spirits merely as passive points of tran-

IIO PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

sition, but would supply their own activity with
inducements and incentives, which the external
course of nature cannot offer them. Moreover,
by means of these inducements and incentives
they would succeed, in accordance with the ordi
nary laws of the spiritual life, in introducing into
the world new beginnings of spiritual movement
that are in conformity with the plan of the world.
If in these events we include among others re
ligious visions also, then we do not conceive them
to be, as Rationalism does, merely subjective delu
sions to which nothing in external nature, and
consequently nothing whatever corresponds. On
the contrary, we think of them as products of a
reciprocal action of God with individual spirits by
means of which there is brought to pass in them
an ideal appearance of a truly valid content ; and
this content would gain nothing whatever in dig
nity, value or reality, if it were realized, not
merely as such appearance, but as physical or ma
terial actuality besides.

§ 64. Accordingly it is impossible speculatively
to determine, how far within the limits of proba
bility, faith in the applicability of the not essen
tially impossible conception of miracle ought to
be extended.

HISTORY NOT MERE DEVELOPMENT. 1 1 I

The entire thought however, in which the in
clination towards this faith has its source, is still
further in harmony with the idea of a history for
the world in which we come to participate with
God in some common experience. And while
this is something which is determined in accord
ance with his most general plan, it is still in its
details by no means the mere result of original
predestination. It is therefore not merely ' de
velopment ' according to the law of reason and
consequent, but actual history ; and this history is
without exception found only where general laws
or a general plan are not executed with perfect
constancy, but in alternate action with innumerable
lawless obstacles or free counteractions.

This summing-up of actuality into a history which
has beginning, middle and end, is very natural
to all religions. And yet there are no doubt dif
ficulties involved in such an idea in itself con
sidered.

That is to say, it seems to us at first as if the
proper determination of actuality consists in the
historical actualization of a " world-aim " or in the
struggle toward it. And with this understanding
of the matter, it is altogether natural to regard the
creation, the history of the world, and the judg
ment of the world, as three successive acts of such

112 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

a concluded drama. But upon closer consideration
after all this view is in contradiction to our
needs.

If the world was created in time, so that reckon
ing from this (present) moment a retrogressive
cognition should, after a finite number of steps,
discover its beginning, then we are troubled by the
emptiness of infinite time before this beginning ;
and we know of nothing with which to fill it out.
For even the thought of a solitary preexistence of
God is an obscure one, supposing that the creation
of the world is made to originate from an act of
the will of God, which could have no need of this
preparatory period either for its origination or for
its execution.

Just so if the judgment of the world is the
conclusion of history, it certainly cannot be under
stood to mean that the created actuality would
now vanish again into nothingness. Rather is it
only by this judgment of the world that there is
established an order of things which fulfils the*
aim of the world, and which would then naturally
be perpetuated ad infinitum as the actuality of
that which ought to be ; — and this without ex
periencing any further history of that development,
which would now be superfluous.

Such considerations convince us that the idea

THE PERIODS OF THE WORLD. 1 13

of these three successive periods of Beginning,
Realization and Completion of an aim, — derived
as it is from our human endeavors, — is not ap
plicable to the totality of the world.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE CONCEPTION OF THE 'WORLD-AIM.'

§ 65. The conception of a 'world-aim,' which,
according to the remarks we have just made, would
not be realized all at once at the conclusion of a
history, but progressively in the course of the
world, we have simply introduced without any
question as to its validity. Speculatively it is by
no means to be demonstrated ; it continues to be
perfectly possible to think of the course of the
world as an entirely purposeless, although more
or less living development of an Absolute.

But religious feeling has an immediate evidence
that the case is not so, and that all the phenomena
of inspiration, of adoration, and of the feeling of
obligation to an ideal, are not explicable as casual
effects in the development of a purposeless Prin
ciple.

But if the conception of a supreme aim for
the world is once acknowledged, then the other
ideas, which form its necessary points of relation,
comport with it ; and especially the idea of a per
sonal God, in whose consciousness and will alone
this aim, previous to its full accomplishment, can

PLACE OF THE SUPREME AIM. 115

have any actuality by means of which it becomes
effective as guiding principle for the course of
the world itself. To this subject however we are
not going to return. The most urgent question
is, wherein are we to place this ' supreme aim.'

§ 66. The answer to the foregoing question is
to this extent self-evident, that naturally this aim
cannot be placed in the realization of a fact, with
respect to which the further question were possi
ble ; why just this, and not other conceivable
aims of like nature, is to fill this supremely
exalted position in the world. The aim must
obviously be that which has supreme value, and
with respect to which the aforesaid question
becomes senseless.

Now as to what this aim is, the common, unphil-
osophical religious view is not at all uncertain :
nothing but the conception of blessedness seems
to it to express this value, with respect to which
it is absurd to raise the question, why this and
why nothing else constitutes the supreme aim.
It may be incidentally remarked, that the exist
ence of a world of spirits is connected with the
foregoing view as something conceivable. For only
such a world could contain the subjects whose states
this supreme aim may be conceived to be. On the

Il6 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

other hand, this view by no means also furnishes
at once an explanation of the existence of this
determinate, /^animate world.

§ 67. The above-mentioned view is combated in
vain from the side of an ethical Rigorism, which,
through its well-known undervaluation of all 'pleas
ure,' always in the practical domain, regards noth
ing but disinterested obedience to the universal
commands of duty as ethical ; and therefore in
the religious domain also would not in any case
be disposed to acknowledge ' supreme blessedness '
as the final purpose of the world, — perhaps not,
with any readiness, even as a tolerable conse
quence of that purpose.

With respect to this point we briefly remark
as follows : If obedience or disobedience to an
ethical law were to occasion not a trace of pleas
ure or pain to any sensitive being in the world,
— whether God, angels, or men, — it would be
utterly incomprehensible, why it is just the obedi
ence and not the disobedience to the law that
must have an obligatory force ; since after all
the effects of the two modes of conduct consist
only in the production of different states of fact,
one of which would be as indifferent as the other.

In a word, it is impossible to understand what

THE NATURE OF THE GOOD. I \"J

is to constitute the ' value ' of any action, if its
results are not able to produce some 'Good' some
where in the world, or to increase the sum of
already existing 'Good.' But while we designate
Things, States and Events as ' Good,' it is after
all only in so far as they are means for obtain
ing the only real and substantial ' Good ' ; and
this latter always exists only in the pleasure of
some sensitive spirit, and would vanish with the
world of spirits completely from the realm of ac
tuality.

No Ethics can avoid having regard to a pur
pose that is final and in itself of absolute value.
No matter to what extent many rigorous systems
formulate their highest ethical laws apparently
without any such regard, still, in addition to the
assurances that they are the highest laws, the
conclusion must always be supplied : What then
would be the result, if these laws were not obeyed ?

§ 68. The foregoing assertions do not degrade
morals. It is not meant by them, that the direct
endeavor after happiness — and that, too, after one's
own happiness — should be the ethically praise
worthy motive of our action. On this point our
conscience gives us sufficient instruction ; since
it interprets this endeavor as in itself considered

Il8 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

indifferent and merely natural, but on the con
trary interprets as ethically laudable only the
endeavor to secure the happiness of others. Thus
(as might be further proved) the command of
' benevolence ' is, among all ethical commands,
really the fundamental one ; and only upon the
assumption of it do all the rest receive their ob
ligatory value.

On the other hand, in seeking a coherent view
of the world, we have a speculative interest in the
fact that the ethical commands, which we are able
in practice to obey without any further question
as to their origin, are not wholly lacking in co
herence with the arrangement of the world.

That such arrangement therefore be reckoned to
the account of the final purpose of blessedness, is
a speculative claim, which we set up in the in
terest, to a certain extent, of our reverence for
the world, but not for the satisfaction of our own
wishes for happiness. We are naturally unable to
avoid including our own welfare also in this com
prehensive final purpose.

The foregoing are perhaps the incentives which
in religious thought have led to this doctrine of
blessedness. From these incentives are distin
guished, and not to their advantage, at least as
regards the intention, the philosophical systems

BLESSEDNESS AS AN ABSTRACT NOTION. 1 19

which only in a practical way set up claims upon
our obedience to universal ethical laws, but specu-
latively give us no enlightenment with respect to
the ultimate end, to which properly this ceaseless
expenditure of ethical energy is to lead.

§ 69. Certainly, the laudation alluded to above
holds good only of the intention and not of the
performance of this religious opinion. It is wrecked
rather in the attempt, actually to deduce the neces
sity of the present world from the supreme purpose
of blessedness.

The first objection certainly might be disre
garded ; namely, why this purpose could be accom
plished at all only as a result of a course of the
world, and why it could not be accomplished as
well from the very beginning. At the foundation
of such a question there really lies the logical error
of regarding the conception of ' blessedness ' or of
' pleasure in general ' in this universal sense of it,
as something realizable. But the 'pleasure' that
is without content can no more exist than a sen
sation of ' color in general,' which were neither
green nor blue. Every ' pleasure ' is rather an
altogether determinate one, which is distinguished,
as to its intensity and coloring, from others, and in
both respects is determined by the nature of the
content of which it is an enjoyment.

I2O PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

Hence it may be made evident, that we are
utterly unable to form any real idea of a blessed
ness without content, although we can form the
name of it ; that it is capable of realization rather
only upon the supposition that there are actual
relations of some sort, which constitute the object
of enjoyment in this pleasure ; and, finally, that
even these relations cannot be as they will, but
together must form an orderly arrangement of the
world.

But no progress is made in the foregoing way ;
the postulates which are set up with respect to
such an arrangement of the world, are always after
all general and abstract. That they had to be
realized now by means of just these substances,
forces, organisms, and kinds of occurrence, which
we discover empirically in the world, is in nowise
to be proved.

Wonder at the fact that so many other kinds
of existence were still possible, which however do
not exist, can be modified but imperfectly by the
intimation that our range of experience is narrow,
and that perhaps there are realized in the extra-
earthly world all the possibilities which we miss
upon the surface of the earth. For since we have
reason to think that the most general physical laws,
which are valid with us, are valid also for all distant

THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL. 121

parts of the world, therefore the organizations also
which are there found can only be such as are in
accordance with these laws. There always remains
as conceivable, however, an infinite manifoldness
that might exist, if those laws were only different.
We are therefore brought round to the new
question : Why are the laws of nature, which are
not necessities of thought but empirical, precisely
as they are and not otherwise ? This question is
unanswerable ; and in our religious faith we must
be content to think of the given world as in
fact called to the realization of the supreme pur
pose, without being able to investigate any further
the grounds of this calling.

§ 70. The existence of evil in the world — and
that too primarily of mere physical evil — brings
our general assumptions still further into inex
plicable contradiction with our data of facts.

It is sufficient to indicate in a word, how utterly
fruitless are those ways of speaking which seek
to apologize for evil by recognizing it only " in
particulars," but maintaining " the harmony of
the world as a whole." One needs only to reverse
these utterances : " On the whole the world makes
a beautiful figure indeed, but in particulars it is
wretched," — in order to understand that such ex-

122 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

pressions give evidence merely of the good inten
tion of the apology, but specify no ground for
such an apology. .

Moreover the assertion of that " harmony on the
whole " is in fact by no means whatever to be
demonstrated. We merely know that the world
does not perish on account of its imperfections,
but that both it and they continue together.

§ 71. All efforts to attain to clearness upon the
above-mentioned subject, can only try to apologize
for the evil that does not admit of being done
away with by denial.

The first onset for this purpose consists in the
assumption that evil is necessary ; in other words
that God, although having in view only the High
est Good, has nevertheless been bound in his
creation to laws which have not permitted the un
conditioned Good, but only the choice of the best
world among many, all of which were imperfect.

The limitation of the divine Omnipotence which
is involved in this view, might be tolerated to a
certain extent, if the aforesaid general laws were
really understood to be simply the eternal truths,
which, as we saw, are nothing extraneous to God,
but are only the proper modus agendi of his own
spiritual activity. But there is nothing whatever

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

in the whole world by which to prove that these
eternal truths were to blame for the evils that
are in the world. So far as we are in any way
empirically acquainted with the course of things,
and are able, according to its analogy, to judge
of non-realized possibilities, an absolutely faultless
world would not be at all inconsistent with those
'eternal truths.' The ground of evil, so far as
we know, lies rather in those special facts and
arrangements, which are in actual existence, but
instead of which there might as well be others
that were also on friendly terms with the afore
said truths and yet would not lead to these evils.

Since now we must attribute the establishment
of these special actualities to the creative will of
God, the attempt in this way to make the origin
of evil independent of the divine will would not
succeed ; for his omnipotence would have still
further to be so limited that even the actual ele
ments of the world and their original combina
tions would be regarded as something taken for
granted, in the midst of which God would have
to find himself existing, and from which He then
would have to endeavor to secure the best result
still possible (Leibnitz).

This would be not only a degradation of our
conception of God from a religious point of view,

124 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

but it would also be speculatively fruitless. For
in order that the measurable influence upon the
world, which is still attributed to such a God,
might be able to exist at all, a second superior
God would have to be assumed, who, in the
manner previously discussed (§§ 16 ff.), would com
prehend both of these now mutually indifferent
members in one reciprocal action, and would pre
vail upon them to act upon each other.

§ 72. After the foregoing explanation which is
intended as metaphysical, there is one of a peda
gogic sort, that regards evil as a means of Good,
that is of education and improvement.

But in the first place this view merely contem
plates men, who alone are capable of education.
But in the animal world as well physical evils
appear ; and that not at all in a sporadic manner,
but so systematized that the terrible torture and
destruction of one class of creatures by the rest
belongs directly to the so-called order of Nature.
No pedagogic can make this comprehensible. We
can much sooner comprehend how earlier times in
despair over this very fact set a ' bad Principle '
in a dualistic manner over against the Good.

But even leaving this out of the account, —
any education makes use of evil simply because

MORAL AND PHYSICAL EVIL.

the minds which it intends to affect, are psycho
logically so defectively organized, that without
this intrinsically objectionable means the end
would no longer be realized. If it were applied
to the entire world, it would lead back to the
previous thought : God did not have it in his
power to make the world so perfect that it
would attain its end without corrections by
means of evil.

§ 73. A view which has been elaborated rather
in a religious and mystical way, regards the mor
ally Bad as prior and physical evil as a consequence
of its becoming actual.

Now the circumstance that the truly Good was
not to be actualized without the possibility of the
Bad, and therefore that the freedom of the world
of spirits was to be conceded, we can consider
as a necessity which need not be foreign even
to God's own nature. But after all we do not
understand, why the bad 'disposition which entered
the world in consequence of such freedom needed
to have any physical result at all ; and why the
danger which it threatened to the undisturbed
continuance of the world, was not averted by
one of those self-compensations, by means of
which so frequently elsewhere in nature the be-

126 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

ginning of a disturbed equipoise cancels itself
again.

The necessary existence of freedom would there
fore by no means show that the innocent must
suffer by its misuse. But in addition to this also
the view does not cover the whole question.

For the further assumption that nature was
originally without evil and that sin first brought
it into the world, not only lacks all empirical
foundation, but is even in itself considered un
tenable. We cannot, just because individual spirits,
or even very many of them, erred, regard ' sin ' as
a unit-principle or a power which would have a
legitimate influence upon the course of nature in
general ; still less is it - to be understood, why na
ture did not endeavor to overcome singly the dis
turbances which the sin that is foreign to it had
introduced, instead of admitting physical evils, as
a kind of solidaric totality, into the very plan of
its operations.

The incomprehensibleness of the foregoing views
is not lessened by their being proclaimed with still
greater emphasis ; thus, for example, by speaking
of a " voluntary fall of the entire creation " which
now extends "the curse of its imperfection to all
creatures that still spring from it." In whatever
way the picture may be painted, to attribute this

EVIL AN 1NSOLVABLE ENIGMA. \2"J

act of a 'fall' to the collective conception of a
creation means after all nothing whatever. It is
intelligible only as regards each particular, indi
vidual, free and conscious being. But if we refer
it to such a being, then it is a perfect monstrosity,
at variance with the simplest sense of justice, to
assume that the consequences of this act pass
over, as an inheritance which it is impossible to
shake off, to all later generations, although they
are according to their very conception destined
to like 'freedom.'

In very different forms have Mythology, Mysti
cism and Dogmatics represented such a primaeval
history of the world. But none of these attempts
has been able to eliminate the aforesaid manifest
incongruities.

§ 74. The above-mentioned incapacity of our spec
ulative cognition for the solution of this enigma of
evil had to be very plainly expressed. For there
ought not to remain any seeming as if there were, in
expressions which cannot be understood and which
only commend themselves to the imagination through
intuitive images, any real speculative proof for the
correctness of the religious feeling upon which
rests our faith in a good and holy God, and in the
destination of the world to the attainment of a
blessed end.

128 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

He who does not share this religious conviction,
may, on account of these last considerations of
ours, very easily from a speculative point of view
reach that Pessimism, which is just now the order
of the day, and for which there will be on specu
lative grounds no refutation. But this Pessimism,
which reverts to the thought of an original energy
without will, that produces the Good and the Bad
alike without design, is not a profound view but is
just that cheap and superficial kind of view, by
which all enigmas are conveniently disposed of —
by simply sacrificing all that is most essential and
supreme to the unprejudiced mind.

In contrast with this Pessimism, the more diffi
cult problem is the firm confidence that, in spite
of all that is incomprehensible to us, the striving
after a supreme end is at all events extant in the
world. For this confidence takes upon itself the
great and ever unavoidable task of always making
renewed attempts to fill the gap which lies be
tween this content of our faith and our actual
experiences.

If we call every attempt of this sort in thought
or action ' Religion,' then ' religion ' is never ex
actly a demonstrable theorem, but the conviction
of its truth is a deed that is to be accredited to
character.

CHAPTER IX.

RELIGION AND MORALITY.

§ 75. If there is no speculative argument for
religious conviction, still there must be a motive
for holding fast this conviction. And in fact an
appeal has constantly been made to an 'immediate
inner experience,' which attests the truth of the
content of religion, as directly and independently
of the intervention of logic as perception by the
senses attests the reality of external objects. It
has already been said in the Introduction however,
that there by no means exists an harmonious
inner experience as regards that divine order of
the world which is not perceivable by the senses ;
but rather that (compare also § 59) the only ele
ment common to men, to which an appeal may
be made for the confirmation of religion, consists
in those ' utterances of the conscience ' that pri
marily only say what ought to be, and yet after
all permit an indirect inference from this as to
what is.

§ 76. There are different ways of apprehend
ing this real function of the ' conscience ' also.

I3O PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

It must be acknowledged that the conscience
is not, prior to all experience, a coherent revela
tion of the commands to which our future conduct
ought to conform ; the rather is it like our capa
city of cognition. The supreme principles to
which this capacity reduces its judgment of
Things, are also no original ready-made posses
sion of our consciousness. Particular perceptions
rather induce us, in the first place, as a sort of
immediate reaction, to effect their combination so
as to give them a definite significance. It is
only subsequent reflection upon many such par
ticular cases, that shows us in accordance with
what ' principles ' our conduct, which was pre
viously only instinctive, has proceeded. And
now for the first time are they conscious prin
ciples, to which we conform in our subsequent
cognition.

Just so 'conscience' is first induced, by consid
ering cases that are quite definite, to pass par
ticular judgments of approval or disapproval upon
actions which are brought before it. It is only
by reflective comparison of these particular judg
ments, that there is formed from them those
general ethical precepts, which it is then cus
tomary to designate as the 'immediate voice of
conscience.'

THE VIEW OF EGOISM. 131

§ 77. This necessary concession with respect to
the psychological development of our conscience,
is now made use of to support in the first place
a view, which annuls the obligatory value and the
proper majesty of ethical commands.

It is the view, namely, that the sensibility
which induces the spirit to approve or disapprove
of some definite act itself rests in turn merely
upon the immediate well-being or ill-being, which
the spirit experiences from it. When however
this sensibility proceeds to the formation of gen
eral propositions, it comprises only those maxims,
constant obedience to which experience has taught
secures on the average the highest degree and
steadiest permanence of that well-being which is
at all attainable. All ethical commands accord
ingly appear merely as maxims of that Egoism
which seeks its own self-preservation ; they appear
however as general laws simply for the reason
that the limitation of our cognition of the past,
present and future, does not in every case permit
that mode of action which is specially suited to
these different periods, for the attainment of the
highest possible good.

To this entire mode of apprehending the sub
ject we must now concede this one point, —
namely, that the mere experience of human inter-

132 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

course certainly may furnish us with the concrete
and determinate particular content of those pre
cepts, in conforming to which ethical behavior
consists ; and that, on the other hand, all at
tempts in a reverse direction to deduce those
specialized precepts from the general conceptions
of the Good, the Ethical, the Holy, or the Just,
are in vain. Such general conceptions express
nothing whatever but the peculiar character of
the impression, which definite kinds of conduct
will make upon our feelings, as soon as we shall
become acquainted with them : on the other hand,
they do not acquaint us with just those forms of
the conduct itself, to which this impression will
apply.

§ 78. A disposition which insists upon endeavor
ing to find in ethical precepts nothing but pru
dential maxims acquired by experience, and to find
back of all actions nothing but egoistic motives, can
in no way be gainsaid by mere speculation. So
much only is clear, namely, that such an interpre
tation of moral commands is arbitrary. For in that
case also, supposing us to assume that a worth
and sacredness of their own belongs to these com
mands, everything would still be exactly the same.
That is to say, these commands would in fact be

THE VIEW OF EGOISM. 133

the maxims, conforming to which produces the
greatest amount of happiness. The content more
over of that which they command would always
be learned first by experience, as was previously
mentioned. And for just this reason it would always
be possible to represent them as though they were
nothing more than such lessons of experience with
respect to what is expedient.

But on the other hand, he who prefers this
interpretation overlooks the fact, that we all of us
none the less set over against the conduct which
simply conforms to these maxims of prudence,
another of an altogether different sort, as being
the only one of value ; and this latter conduct con
forms to these same maxims, although with differ
ent sentiments ; and indeed with such sentiments
as either have disinterested regard to the estab
lishment of the Good, in precisely the same way,
for instance, in which we reverence beauty as having
objective value without advantage to ourselves —
or else with such sentiments as find happiness, so
far as they make the production of it an object
of pursuit, only in benevolence towards others and
not in selfishness.

This also may be denied ; but in denying it
there is involved the denial of an inner experience,
upon the acknowledgment of which every further

134 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

upward flight of religion depends. Conversely,
therefore, it will not be possible to gainsay those
who are conscious of this inner experience.

§ 79. But even the recognition of the peculiar
worth and sacredness of ethical commands does not
lead at once to a religious view of the world ; on the
contrary this recognition, in ancient as well as mod
ern times, has been put in express opposition to
religious thoughts, which seemed like a needless
and false supplement to it. It is not to be denied,
that practically even this Stoicism, or the Rational
ism which disdains any connection with religion,
may, by mere subordination to the general demands
of morality and of the course of the world, furnish
the basis for a conduct of life well deserving of rec
ognition. But there are involved in this conception
(compare § 68) peculiar speculative contradictions.

It is maintained in the first place, that all
thoughts about an origin at some time or other,
or about an ultimate aim of moral laws, are to be
avoided, because they could only serve to corrupt
the conception of the peculiar sacredness and un
conditioned obligation of these laws, which demand
rather an altogether immediate recognition as being
absolutely obligatory. Worthy of respect as is the
sentiment which is thus expressed, yet the specu-

AN 'UNCONDITIONED OUGHT.' 135

lative thought, by which it would like to sustain
itself, is utterly unserviceable. Laws that are com
pletely unconditioned may be conceived of, so far
forth as they in fact govern all actuality, like the
laws of nature, and are consequently expressions of
a 'must' which knows no exceptions. On the con
trary the thought of an ' unconditioned Ought/ that
is, of a law to which actuality in no wise of itself
corresponds, is incomprehensible.

There must be a difference between the reality
of that which oiight to be and of that which ought
not to be ; and this difference cannot consist in
the mere repetition of these two antithetical predi
cates. Rather must the very consideration, that the
one ought to be and the other ought not to be,
have a practical validity. In other words and more
simply : An unconditioned ' Ought ' is unthinkable ;
and only a conditioned Ought is possible, which
attaches advantages and disadvantages to the ob
servance or non-observance of what is prescribed.
These very consequences, however, may still con
sist ultimately only in pleasure or pain. And in
this alone also consists the ' absolute value,' as it is
called, which the ideals of conduct designated by
moral laws possess. A value, which is valued by
no one, and therefore causes no one pleasure or
pain, is, according to our previous explanation
(§ 67), an essentially self-contradictory thought.

136 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

Now the advantage, which must be inseparably
connected with the claim to validity for the moral
laws, could be sought primarily in that immobility
of feeling, that ataraxy, which Stoicism regards as
the ideal of life for the wise man. But if this is
commendable so far as it does not permit disturb
ance by the passions, still there is little that is
commendable in its consequence, which would also
exclude living enthusiasm for the Good and Beauti
ful, and would virtually degrade the feeling spirit
to the form in which an impersonal substance ex
ists. The moral laws, however, so far as this
ataraxy would be attained by observing them, would
in fact still be mere maxims of utility, which would
be designed for the attainment of a completely ego
istic well-being.

It is manifestly, however, not this tranquillity
of mind alone that has been in view as the ulti
mate goal and good, but the self-esteem which is
secured by observance of the moral laws. Now
this may without doubt be very well meant, but
to say the least it is not compatible with the
refusal of all further religious views. If we regard
the individual personality as only a product of
nature, which transiently appears and then van
ishes, it is not possible to understand just why
we attach any value to the fact that what we

PRINCIPLES OF ALL RELIGION, 137

*

revere as good and holy must have its realization
in just such an ' Ego ' as this. Self-esteem also
would therefore be immediately intelligible as an
ultimate goal only in case it were brought under
the conception of that which ministers to our
egoistic well-being, in the same way as does
every sensuous satisfaction. It would be possi
ble for it to have a different significance only in
case our view of our own personality, and of its
position in the totality of the world be changed.

§ 80. The foregoing reflections, which con
fessedly have not the value of demonstrations in
the proper sense, but are merely intended to
make us sensible of the connection by which
the particular thoughts here mentioned, first get
their complete satisfaction, lead us now to three
propositions which we may regard as the character
istic convictions of every religious apprehension, in
contradistinction to a merely intellectual view of
the world, — namely :

(1) Ethical laws we designate as the will of God ;

(2) Individual finite spirits we designate not as
products of nature, but as children of God ;

(3) Actuality we designate not as a mere course
of the world, but as a kingdom of God. These
three propositions are to be elucidated and their
consequences investigated.

138 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

§ 81. The first of the above-mentioned propo
sitions has raised objections, which ultimately
lead to the well-known scholastic alternative : ' Is
the Good good, because God wills it ? or does
He will it, because it is good ? ' This point is
to be decided according to the analogy of the
similar question as to the validity of eternal
truths.

If one would answer the first member of the
alternative in the affirmative, the question would
be asked : What then is comprehended under the
thought of that God, who appears here as the sub
ject of this will ? He would be nothing but an
infinite Power, as yet wholly devoid of content ;
and the affirmation, that He has willed the Good
(if it meant a determination of will issued in time,
quite as much as if it declared this will, to be one
without beginning and eternal) would really be
precisely identical with the other assertion, —
namely, the Good is assumed to be once for all in
existence, and a ' positing ' or ' affirming,' wholly
without origin, is the basis of this assumption.
It is moreover obvious, that every such deed of
mere power, while it may impart necessity, cannot
impart worth to the command.

But then, on the other hand, it is just as fruitless
to assert that God wills the Good because it is

GOD THE INTRINSICALLY GOOD. 139

'intrinsically good.' For, to say nothing about
the ambiguity of this latter expression, an ac
knowledgment of the Good, which is not a merely
enforced decree in subordination to a statute,
would after all be possible only in case the con
tent to be acknowledged already possesses for the
nature of the acknowledging spirit the truth and
the value which is to be awarded to it.

We are convinced therefore, that the above-
mentioned alternative separates again two thoughts,
which must be thought together in absolute insep-
arableness as the expression of a single fact ; and
that we always run against absurdities, whenever
we make one of these alternatives the condition
for the other.

We therefore come to the following decision :
God is nothing else than that Will, whose con
tent and modes of procedure are comprehended m
our reflection as the ' intrinsically Good ' ; and
which may by abstraction be separated from that
living form of existence which it nowhere else
possesses but precisely in the real God. In truth,
however, such will of God no more follows from
his nature as secondary to it, or precedes it as
primary to it, than in motion — say direction can
be antecedent or subsequent to velocity.

It is therefore an entire mistake to object that

I4O PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

the peculiar majesty of moral laws suffers detri
ment if they are regarded as the will of God. For
we take this view of the matter, not precisely
with the design of laying, by the specification of
their origin, a basis for that worth of those com
mands which we directly recognize ; but we do it
in order to add to this worth — which, although
it stands on its own foundation, we were neverthe
less obliged to regard speculatively as an incom
plete thought, — this supplement, by which, as we
remarked, its worth is not enhanced but becomes
intelligible and compatible with the totality of our
view of the world.

§ 82. As regards the second proposition (§ 80),
the somewhat sentimental way in which it is ex
pressed need not deceive us with respect to the
weightiness of the thought. It has a twofold mean
ing. That is to say, on the one hand there is
involved in it the recognition of the finiteness of
the personal spirit and of its subjection to the
power and wisdom of God. And herein is found
the reason for that opposition which the Christian
Religion especially has expressed against the pride
of speculative systems of morality, that seek to
attain as their ideal the self-satisfaction, self-esteem,
and self-righteousness of the 'wise man.'

RELATION OF MAN TO GOD. 141

The other part of this twofold meaning is the no
less lively opposition to that depreciation of per
sonality, which sees in it merely a transient prod
uct of the course of nature. The assertion is
therefore expressed in this connection, that there
exists between man and God a relation of piety ;
that this relation is always a vital one ; and that
by means of it — but also only by means of it —
the finite spirit ceases to be such absolutely de
pendent product of the course of nature.

The hope of being loved by God, however, takes
the place of mere self-satisfaction as the Highest
Good. Such approval by the Supreme Spirit sup
plants the proud claim of having one's satisfaction
in one's own self-esteem.

§ 83. With relation to the third proposition
(§ 80), we have already been obliged to confess that
we do not know the content and plan of the divine
government of the world : and the consequence of
this with respect to religion is, that the entire con
sideration of external reality is withdrawn from its
domain, and is regarded as an object for science,
which has to ascertain its consistence by methods
entirely free from prejudice, and therefore not at
all influenced even by religious considerations.
This attitude, too, is distinctive of Christianity.

142 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

The religions of heathenism possess a mythology,
which seeks to explain and interpret, in a very cir
cumstantial manner, the facts of reality. Chris
tianity has no mythology and rests all its reflec
tions entirely upon considerations of the spiritual
world, of which we have an inner experience.

CHAPTER X.

DOGMAS AND CONFESSIONS.

§ 84. Nothing more than the content of the three
propositions already cited is in fact revealed, even
by the Christian Revelation. To be penetrated by
their influence, and to be voluntarily subject to the
divine will, as they require, constitutes a living,
consolatory religious state, — or religion as a condi
tion of mind.

It is, nevertheless, quite impossible to avert
attempts to transform this religious content, which
was originally apprehended only in living presenti
ment, into a series of formulated and communicable
propositions.

To such attempts we are impelled on the one
side by our own life-experience, which desires to
answer the doubts that have arisen, not always by
a mere appeal to the same frame of mind, but also
by convictions that enter upon the special content
of the doubts raised. Under the name of religious
Mysticism may be summed up the whole of these
attempts at theory which are based exclusively upon
one's own inner religious experience, and which
also primarily claim no other validity than that

144 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

which exists for the personal subject who finds
out of the depth of his own mind the desired
answers to those doubts.

§ 85. Over against this first impulse stands a
second. It is essentially self-contradictory for one
to stand alone with his religious conviction, since
it is just this condition which unites man to the
entire universe. Religion is not merely union of
the individual with God, but in and by this union
it is at the same time union with all other men.

In this impulse lies the one respectable root of
religious Fanaticism. What we acknowledge as the
Supreme, would not be such Supreme, unless it
were acknowledged by all. Hence now there fol
lows, not the warrant to be sure to force one's
subjective views upon others, but rather that need
of a religious community — now so frequently mis
taken — within which each one finds again, not
indeed the complete content of his own individual
mysticism, but at least the outlines of the convic
tion to which he is able to subordinate or to attach
his own.

Such therefore is the necessity of generally ac
cepted Dogmas and Symbols.

TWOFOLD DESIGN OF DOGMA. 145

§ 86. Without doubt the historic development
of such thoughts will embrace the content of
religion more completely than the life-experience
of an individual ; although this latter pervades with
greater intensity that which has once become ob
ject of such personal experience.

Generally accepted objective dogmas will there
fore have the twofold design, — on the one hand,
to hold fast those solutions of doubt which have
been gained in the course of time ; but, on the
other hand, to designate certain outlines of thought
beyond which our subjective fancies are not to go
without exposing themselves to error.

According to our previous considerations, no one
of these dogmas would be, properly speaking, a
speculatively or scientifically conclusive answer to
a proposed question ; they would all be mere sym
bols rather, which acknowledge the existence of
an enigma and which by means of an insufficient
figurative designation only fix the limits of that
range of thoughts, beyond which the fulfilment
of such postulates must not be sought.

It would therefore be reckoned a mistake for us
to demand of the one who purposes to belong to a
religious community, an obligation binding him to
the literal purport of such dogmas. It is just ac
cording to their literal purport that they cannot be

146 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

objects of a confession or non-confession at all. In
order that this question of confession may be raised,
the dogmas need at all times an interpretation of
their real meaning, — a meaning which they always
indicate but imperfectly, by figures or symbols.
Such interpretation however is not given objec-.
tively, but each individual is in fact to find it by
the activity of his own mind.

It appears therefore that the only question to
be put to the one who proposes to belong to a
religious community is, whether he in his own
heart experiences and confesses a religious truth,
which admits of being comprehended as the im
port of this objectively formulated dogma, and
which it is worth while to have acknowledged
in this particular form as a bond of union for
the religious conviction of a collective body.

§ 87. It may be objected, that there is involved
in this a sort of dissimulation. But above all
things we do not maintain that religion and its
dogmas are obligatory 'only for the uncultivated.'
The truth of religion rather is absolutely valid for
all alike ; on the contrary, the speculative expres
sions which have been discovered for it, are alto
gether inadequate. And for just this reason it is
permitted to agree upon a formula, to which each

INEXPRESSIBLE BUT TRUE RELATIONS. 147

one gives that theoretical construction by which
he believes its essential meaning is best compre-

•

hended.

In other departments of life also we are not
able to discard methods of apprehending the
world, which within the sphere of philosophy we
nevertheless recognize as inadequate. The exist
ence of a space-world outside of us, the atoms, and
the forces of matter, — all these are ideas, without
the use of which not only the common understand
ing, but even philosophy, which denies their cor
rectness, would not be at all able to find its way
in its observation and treatment of the external
world. In all these cases it is not so much
that we get at the truth, as that we get at such
an intuitive 'seeming' as is able to make intelli
gible to us the essentially inexpressible, but true
relations of the Actual.

Just so in the case of religion it is not re
quired that there be found a speculatively unob
jectionable expression for that which is essentially
Transcendent, but that we have figurative expres
sions to which the mind may attach the same
feelings that are appropriate to the proper con
tent of religion.

Now it is of course to be conceded that we
could speak as simply as we do, only in case

148 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

these formulated dogmas were first to be estab
lished. They are however already in existence,
and historically considered they are surely not in
all cases so perfected, that they admit of no mis
understanding as to their true sense. But still
this affords no reason for a wilful separation from
those circles which acknowledge the dogmas ; it
only involves a summons not to make of them
subjects for theoretic instruction, as well as a
problem of pastoral wisdom in combating the
evils of a false interpretation.

§ 88. The attempts at theory may be reduced to
three divisions, the first of which only, Theology in
the narrower sense, is sufficiently accessible to phi
losophy.

We have endeavored in the preceding discussion
to show, what more precise determinations of the
Divine Being philosophy admits, what it excludes,
and finally what it demands, without being able to
present them in the form of adequate conceptions.
As the total result of our discussion we repeat,
that faith in a personal God contradicts none of
those metaphysical convictions which we are com
pelled to maintain ; that, on the contrary, those
assertions are entirely without foundation which,
with decided incredulity as regards all that is re-

THEOLOGY AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 149

ligious and with frivolous credulousness as regards
the theories fashionable in physical science, conceive
of an origin for spiritual life from the forces of
mere matter ; and, finally, that the charge of an
thropomorphism is entirely unjust, for the distinc
tions between the infinite and the finite spirit are
by no means overlooked. But it is certainly foolish
to prefer to assign the Supreme Principle of the
world to an unconscious blind substratum, the con
ception of which is for us, strictly speaking, some
thing completely dark and inscrutable.

§ 89. Further speculations — as for example con
cerning the Trinity — would be, as regards the
religious life, matters of complete indifference, but
for the fact that they have been brought into con
nection with the position toward God, which the
human race has come to occupy by means of the
establishment or revelation of religion. The con
sideration in general of this position forms a sec
ond grand object of religious theories.

According to the conviction maintained in this
discussion as to the constant activity of God in the
world and upon individual spirits ; and considering
our acknowledged ignorance of the precise plan
which the divine government follows ; there is noth
ing whatever that stands in opposition to the further

I5O PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

conviction that God, at particular moments and
in particular persons, may have stood nearer to
humanity, or may have revealed himself at such
moments and in such persons in a more eminent
way than at other moments and in other persons.

If therefore reverence for the founder of our
religion designates him as ' Son of God,' no se
rious objection to the essential thought which is
expressed by this term is, in view of the preced
ing paragraph, tenable ; it is even without doubt
legitimate to regard the relation in which he stood
to God, as absolutely unique not only as to degree
but also as to its essential quality.

But no one can discover an adeqtiate expression
for that which would exactly correspond to the con
notation of such a term (diesen Intentionen). Since
then Christ after all cannot be ' God's Son ' in the
literal sense, but the true meaning of this figura
tive expression admits of no authentic interpreta
tion whatever, this entire proposition is not at
all adapted for the formation of a speculative
dogma ; and he who assents to it in fact expresses
merely his conviction of the unique value which
Christ has for him, and which Christ's relation to
God has for humanity, without however being able
precisely to define either of them.

SATISFACTION AND REDEMPTION. 151

§ 90. He who in an unprejudiced way allows
the teaching of Christ and the history of Christ's
life to influence his mind, without analyzing this
impression, may be convinced that an infinitely
valuable and unique act has occurred here on earth
for the salvation of humanity. But the attempts
to settle speculatively the content and value of
this fact, do not as a whole lead to the end
designed.

It is impossible to speak of God's honor as re
ceiving ' satisfaction ' through the sacrificial death
of a single person, for the injury done it by the
sin of man. For such a view, aside from its some
what crude conception of God, is based upon the
altogether impossible conception of a solidaric
unity of the human race and of the possibility
of a transfer of its guilt and obligation to a single
representative.

The more humane ideas of a ' Reconciliation ' or
a ' Redemption ' — at least the latter of them —
leave it undetermined from whom it is, precisely,
that humanity beholds itself delivered by this
ransom. It could not well be God, but must
rather be the order of natural law, which has
connected sin with our finiteness and condemna
tion with our sin.

Now we know that we are redeemed neither

152 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

from physical evils nor from the possibility of sin.
The only thing left therefore as the practically
effective result of redemption is the content of a
faith revealed and proffered to us, which redeems
us from the distress and wretchedness of Creation,
in so far as it teaches us to regard all evil as only
a divine trial ; teaches us, however, to regard the
whole of the earthly life, not to be sure as insig
nificant, nor yet as an irrevocable finality, but as a
state of preparation, for the errors of which there
is in the divine grace a redemption which we are
not in the least able speculatively to define.

All further speculations which attach themselves
to this subject — as, for example, about the origin
of sin and about its consequences — are perfectly
useless as regards the religious life.

§ 91. Even the third division of such specula
tions, which we may sum up as Eschatology,
does not admit of being cultivated speculatively.
The earthly future of the human race as well as
the nature of our immortality and of the retri
bution which the final judgment will bring, are
entirely beyond the reach of any concrete por
trayal. And in this connection the Humanism
of modern times has in fact become entirely dis
used to such concrete representations, and has be-

NECESSITY FOR A RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY. 153

come satisfied, as it must be, with maintaining
the general faith in continued existence and in
a constant process of perfection, as well as in a
retribution ; and in just this way it has shown
that for a truly religious life there is really no
necessity whatever for that vast sum of knowl
edges which dogmatics, with much liability to
misunderstanding, assumes as necessary to such a
life.

§ 92. Mention was previously made of the value
attaching to the necessity that one shall not stand
alone in his religious convictions. The value of
this is the more enhanced on account of the fact
that the content of these very convictions them-,
selves consists in faith in an uninterrupted union
of men with each other and with God, into which
it is possible for every one to enter by his own
free choice.

If we call this communion the invisible Church,
then the visible Church, on the other hand, is
certainly nothing more than a human institution
of the company of believers : partly for fellowship
in the worship of God, partly for the regulation
of its earthly affairs in agreement with the de
mands of its faith. But every pretension which

154 PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.

such visible Church might advance, not merely to
teach the way to eternal salvation and to guide
to it, but to open and to shut this way by virtue
of its own power, is quite unfounded. As for the
rest, the Church, like every other institution, must
not fall into a condition of opposition to the regu
lations of the State ; although we cannot regard it
as a happy expression to say that the Church
must be subjected to these regulations in anything
else but external matters of an altogether indiffer
ent character. On the contrary, it is the evil of
the present time — and of course has its historic
conditions — that the State as such is compelled
to exist without any religious foundation and that
it believes it has no need of any.

But the complete unity of the State in religious
matters also, would of course presuppose that two
hostile parties should return to modesty ; — namely,
that theological learning on the one side, and irre
ligious natural science on the other, should not
assert that they have exact knowledge about so
very much which they neither do know nor can
know; it would therefore presuppose that, in the
recognition of divine mysteries which are left to
the interpretation of each individual believing mind,
and of general ethical precepts concerning the

THE END OF CONTROVERSY. 155

meaning of which moreover there exists no con
troversy, the religious life may unfold itself in
accordance with the motto : In necessariis unitas,
in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas.

INDEX.

INDEX.

A.

Absolute, the One Being, 32 f. ; relation of Things to, 33 f. ; Determinations
°f. 35 f-I Spinoza's view 0^38; as personal Spirit, 43 f., 55 f., 68; and
therefore conscious, 66 f. ; none besides God, 83 f. ; course of the world
related to, U4f.

Action, between elements, 25 f. ; of Things on each other, 30 f.

Argument, the Ontological, 8 f. ; the Cosmological, lof. ; the Teleological.

Attributes, of God, 45 f.

B.

Being, God as the Most Perfect, 9 f. ; as the necessary, 10 f. ; and uncon
ditioned, 13 f., 55 f. ; intelligent, 21 ; the Absolute, 32 f. ; Unity of, 52 f.
Blessedness, as the supreme end, n8f.

C.

Christ, as Son of God, 150 f. ; relation to humanity, 150.

Church, visible and invisible, 153 ; relation of, to State, 153.

Conscience, function of, 129 f.; development of, 131 f.

Consciousness, belongs to Personality, 56 f. ; conception of, 56 ; origin of,

57 f. ; involves self-identical Ego, 59 f., 62 ; feeling necessary to, 60 f.
Contingent, events, as, 10 f.
Creation, conception of, 71 f. ; Divine will in, 73 f. ; not necessarily deed,

74 f., 79 f. ; " out of Nothing," 79 ; no process of, 79 f.

D.

Design, conscious in Nature, 17 f.

Development, not creation, 71 f., 79.

Dogmas, necessity of, 143 f. ; subscription to, 145 ; limits of, 147.

Dualism, in philosophy, 39 ; as to origin of evil, 124.

I6O INDEX.

E.

Ego, unites elements, 30; idea of, 59 f., 63, 64; correlative to non-egot62f.
End, conformity to an, i6f., iSf. ; in the world's history, inf., 114; the

supreme, 115 f., 118.

Eschatology, not a matter for speculation, 152.

Ethics, relation of, to the idea of value, 117; and of expediency, 132 f.
Evil, apologies for, 121 f. ; origin of, 124, 126.

F.

Faith, as organ of Religion, i f.
Fall, conception of a, 126 f.
Fanaticism, origin of, 144.

Feeling, groups of the religious, 5 f. ; necessary to self-consciousness, 60 f.
Fichte, on "world-stuff," 97.

Force, conception of, in Nature, 17 f, 20 f.; blind and unconscious, 40.
Freedom, a condition of Government, 99; not speculatively defensible,
ioof., 102, 106; objections to, 103.

G.

God, proof of his existence, 8 f. ; ontological argument for, 8 f. ; cosmo-
logical argument for, 10 f. ; as unconditioned, 13 f. ; teleological argu
ment for, 15 f., 22 f., 24 f. ; as Supreme Intelligence, 21 ; Unity of, 45 f. ;
Unchangeableness of, 46 f., 52 f. ; Omnipresence of, 47 f. ; Omnipotence
of, 49 f., 86 f., 88 ; Eternity of, 51 f. ; Personality of, 55 f., 68 f. ; as Cre
ator, 70, 79; productive will of, 73 f., 79 f., 139; no Principle antecedent
to, 82, 90; relation of truth to, 84 f., 91 f. ; government of, 95 f.

Good, idea of the highest, 122, 133, 141 ; as compatible with Evil, 124; rela
tion to the Divine Will, 138 f.

Government, the Divine, 95 f.; conditions of, 98 f., 106; distinguished
from Preservation, 107 ; by intervention, 109 f.

I.

Intelligence, in Nature, 21 ; inhering in Things, 24 f.

L.

Law, not above Things, 83 ; nor antecedent to God, 83 f., 88 f.
Leibnitz, best possible world of, 123.

INDEX. l6l

M.

Materialism, its account of self-consciousness, 57.

Matter, contrasted with Spirit, 35 f., 37, 38.

Metaphysic, Postulates derived from, 30 f., 52.

Miracle, the conception of, 107 f. ; abstract conceivableness of, 108 f.

extent not speculatively determined, nof.
Mysticism, origin of, 143.

N.

Nature, elements and forces of, 18 f. ; blind course of, 21 f., 47.
Necessary, conception of the, 10, 12 f.

O.

Omnipotence, meaning of the Divine, 49, 86 f., 88; never in the abstract,

87 f. ; modus agendl of, 122.
Ought, idea of the, 135 f.

P.

Pantheism, 38.

Personality, conception of, 55 f. ; of the Absolute, 55, 68 ; a self-conscious

ego, 59 f., 62 f., 64 ; perfect only when infinite 68 f.
Pessimism, 128.

Philosophy, legitimate place of, i f.
Power, conception of, 87 f.

Preservation, of the World, 81 f., 92 f. ; as new creation, 92 f.
Principle, the absolute, 35 ; and the supreme, 149.
Providence, in organism, 22 f.

R.

Season, organ of Religion, i f. ; necessarily self-conscious, 39 f.

Redemption, idea of, 151 f.

Religion, as related to Reason, if., 6; and scientific cognition, 4f. ;
involves experience, 5 ; feelings of, 5 f. ; relation to morals, 129 f. ; first
principles of, 137; the Christian, 140; the communion of, 145.

Rigorism, an ethical, 116 f.

1 62 INDEX.

S.

Schelling, 38.

Science, nature of its cognitions, 4.

Sensations, origin of, 36.

Sin, origin of, in a Fall, iz.6 f.

Spinoza, 38.

Spirit, contrasted with Matter, 35 f., 38; always self-conscious, 39, 56 f . ;

and personal, 41 f. ; the Infinite, 66; finite spirits, 67 f., 96.
Spiritualism, the philosophical, 39.
Stoicism, its wise man, 136.

T.

Theology, relation to philosophy, 148.

Things, properties of, 16 f. ; as intelligent, 24 f. ; homogeneous and con
nected, 29 f., 31 ; influence of, on each other, 30 f. ; as modifications of
the Absolute, 32^,34,67; spiritual susceptibility of, 37; cannot have
unity, 53 ; as subject to law, 83.

Time, not self-subsisting form, 51 f.

Trinity, doctrine of, 149.

Truth, as related to God, 84 f., 91 f.

U.

Unconditioned, conception of the, 13 f.
Universe, origin of, 17 f., 28; elements of, 27 f., 28 f.

W.

Will, the Divine in creation, 73 f. ; the human, 75, 104 ; modus agendi

unknown, 77 ; the free, 104 f.
World, relation of, to God, 70, 81, 94, 95.

Philosophy.

Empirical Psychology ; or, The Human Mind as

Given in Consciousness. By LAUKENS P. HICKOK, D.D., LL.D.
Revised with the cooperation of JULIUS H. SEELYE, D.D., LL.D.,
President of Amherst College. i2mo. 300 pages. Mailing Price,
$1.25 ; Introduction, $1.12; Allowance, 40 cts.

Hickok's "Science of the Mind," which has been in the hands
of teachers and students for more than a quarter of a century, has
been here wholly revised, and almost wholly re-written, making it
not only a new text-book but a new contribution to the important
science of which it treats. The precision of statement and thorough
ness of treatment which so remarkably characterized the original
wojk, and made it so highly prized by so many teachers, are no less
conspicuous in the present work ; but a different method in the gen
eral discussion has been adopted, though the end originally sought
is the same.

The publishers believe that the book will be found to be remark
ably comprehensive, and at the same time compact and clear. It
gives a complete outline of the Science, concisely presented, and in
precise and plain terms.

John Bascom, Pres. of Univ. of
Wisconsin, Madison : It is an excellent
book. It has done much good service,
and, as revised by President Seelyc, is
prepared to do much more. (Fel>.^'&2.)

I. W. Andrews, Pres. Marietta
Coll., Ohio : I am glad to see that this
work holds its place among our text
books on that most important subject.
Dr. Hickok I regard as one of the ablest
of our philosophical writers, and few
teachers have had so large and success
ful an experience as President Seelye.
This new edition, carefully revised by
these two gentlemen, may be confi
dently recommended as presenting a

delineation of the mental faculties so
clear and accurate that the careful stu
dent will hardly fail to recognize its
truth in his own experience.
(April 6, 1882.)

M. Valentine, Pres. and Prof, of
Intellectual and Moral Science, Pennsyl
vania Coll., Gettysburg : I take pleasure
in saying that the new edition impresses
me very favorably. This work of Dr.
Hickok is unquestionably One of high
ability and much merit, and, by its close
analysis and compact, orderly classifical
of the mind's powers, admirably suited
for use as a text-book. Its value is in
creased in this edition. (Jan. 28, '82.)

242

PHILOSOPHY.

Hichoh's Moral Science.

By LAURENS P. HICKOK, D.D., LL.D. Revised with the cooperation
of JULIUS H. SEELYE, D.D., LL.D., President of Amherst College.
I2mo. Cloth. 288 pages. Mailing price, $1.25; Introduction, $1.12;
Allowance, 40 cents.

This work is an entire and careful revision of Hickok's original
text-book of Moral Science. The remarkable excellences of that
book, unsurpassed as it is in systematic rigor and scientific precision,
are carefully retained in the present edition. Many parts of the
book have, however, been rewritten entirely, modifying the original
statements where this was necessary for clearness, and adding new
discussions where this was required for fulness. To the many
teachers who have used the original text-book with such signal
profit, the publishers confidently commend this new and revised edi
tion ; and with equal confidence they offer it to others who would
like a manual in which the principles of morality are expounded in
a manner as truly simple as it is thoroughly scientific.

A. P. Peabody, Prof, of Christian
Morals, Harvard Coll. : Permit me to
express my very high appreciation of
the value of the work. I read it when
it first appeared with the greatest in
terest and satisfaction, and in its pres
ent form it possesses whatever added
claims the most skilful and careful
editorship can give. Had it appeared
a month earlier, should more probably
than not have adopted it.

G. P. Fisher, Prof, of Church His
tory, Yale Coll. : I have long wanted to
see just such a book, — one in which
practical ethics should be clearly and
systematically and philosophically pre
sented. I am very much pleased with
the chapters relating to duties, and not
less so with the more theoretical por
tion of the work. The style is so per
spicuous, ajid at the same time so
concise, that the work is eminently
adapted to serve as a text-book in col
leges and higher schools. In matter
and manner it is a capital book, and I
wish it God speed.

C. B. Hulbert, Pres. Middlebury
Coll., Vt., and Prof, of Moral Science :
In its present form it is the best of
recently issued text-books on Moral
Science.

A. A. E. Taylor, Pres. of Univ.
of Wooster, Ohio, and Prof, of Biblical
Instruction : It is a capital text-book
for the class-room, fully abreast of the
ethical controversies of the day.

I. "W. Andrews, Pres. Marietta
Coll., O., and Prof, of Intellectual Phi
losophy : It is sound, strong, and clear.
I doubt whether any work on Moral
Science surpasses this in the depth and
permanence of the impression made
upon the student. It requires study,
of course, but it will repay the student,
whether teacher or pupil. The part
on duties to the State is admirable for
its fulness and precision.

Wm. F. Swahlen, Pres. McKen-
dree Coll., Lebanon, III. : I am more
and more pleased with it.

PHILOSOPHY. 243

The N. E. Journal of Educa
tion : Taken altogether, it is an ad
mirable text-book, and we can cor
dially recommend it for use wherever
pupils are old enough to consider mor
ality in a scientific way, or to discuss

intelligently the fundamental principles
of civil government. No subjects are
more vitally necessary in public educa
tion, and this volume presents them
in a clear, compact, and forcible man-

Rational Psychology; or, The Subjective Idea

and Objective Law of all Intelligence. By LAURENS P. HiCKOK, D.D.,
LL.D. 543 pages. 8vo. Mailing Price, $1.95. Introduction, $ 1.80.

Creator and Creation ; or, The Knowledge in the

Reason of God and His Work. By LAURENS P. HICKOK, £>.D., LL.D.
360 pages. 8vo. Mailing Price, $1.75. Introduction, $i. 60.

The Logic of Reason, Universal and Eternal.

By LAURENS P. HICKOK, D.D., LL.D. 192 pages. 8vo. Mailing
Price, $1.60. Introduction, $1.44.

Humanity Immortal ; or, Man Tried, Fallen, and

Redeemed. By LAURENS P. HICKOK, D.D., LL.D. 362 pages. 8vo.
Mailing Price, #1.75. Introduction, $1.60.

These books discuss the most difficult and important problems
of human thought. Though each is complete in itself, they pursue
the following order : —

The EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY gives the basis of all physical and
logical science.

The RATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY connects all science with philosophy.

The CREATOR AND CREATION gives the philosophy of all mechan
ical and vital forces.

The MORAL SCIENCE is already in the field of philosophy, and
gives the basis of ^Esthetics, Politics. Ethics, and Theology.

The LOGIC OF REASON frees empiricism from all scepticism in
the attainment of a Being absolutely Universal and Eternal.

The HUMANITY IMMORTAL gives the Divine history of human
experience from its origination to its consummation.

244 PHILOSOPHY.

Lotze's Philosophical Outlines.

Dictated Portions of the Latest Lectures (at Gottingen and Berlin) of
Hermann Lotze. Translated and edited by GEORGE T. LADD, Pro
fessor of Philosophy in Yale College. I2mo. Cloth. About 180 pages
in each volume. Mailing price per vol., $1.00; Introd. price, 80 cents.

The German from which the translations are made consists of the
dictated portions of his latest lectures (at Gottingen, and for a few
months at Berlin) as formulated by Lotze himself, recorded in the
notes of his hearers, and subjected to the most competent and thor
ough revision of Professor Rehnisch of Gottingen. The " Outlines "
give, therefore, a mature and trustworthy statement, in language
selected by this teacher of philosophy himself, of what may be con
sidered as his final opinions upon a wide range of subjects. They
have met with no little favor in Germany.

There is scarcely any other recent writer on philosophical sub
jects whose thoughts are so stimulating for their breadth, penetra
tion, and candor ; or with whom an acquaintance is so desirable for
purposes of general culture through the philosophic way of consid
ering life, with its interests in not merely pure thought, but also in
morals, religion, and art.

It is also hoped that the use of these translations will further the
work of teaching philosophy. Such condensed, orderly, and mature
statements of conclusions on a wide range of philosophical questions
will be found exceedingly valuable for both teacher and pupil. They
furnish a scheme for all the instruction which the teacher is able to
give in presenting and answering these questions. When skilfully
used, they may be made to introduce the pupil to the widest fields
of philosophy under the guidance of a great master, and in an inter
esting way. They present the applications of Metaphysic to art,
religion, nature, and human conduct; — and they thus open regions
of reflection into which the instruction of our colleges and universi
ties scarcely takes their students at all, — regions, however, which are
precisely the ones where such students both desire and need to go.

These translations have been undertaken with the kind permission
of the German publisher, Herr S. Hirzel, of Leipsic.

Outlines of Metaphysic.

The Outlines of Metaphysic contajn.s the scientific treatment of

PHILOSOPHY. 245

those assumptions which enter into all our cognition of Reality. It
consists of three parts, — Ontology, Cosmology, Phenomenology.
The first part contains chapters on the Conception of Being, the
Content of the Existent, Reality, Change, and Causation ; the second
treats of Space, Time, Motion, Matter, and the Coherency of Natural
Events ; the third, of the Subjectivity and Objectivity of Cognition.
The Metaphysic of Lotze gives the key to his entire philosophical
system. It should therefore be studied at the very entrance upon
examination of that system. ,

Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion.

In the Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion Lotze seeks " to
ascertain how much of the Content of Religion may be discovered,
proved, or at least confirmed, agreeably to reason." In successive
chapters he discusses the Proof for the Existence of God, the Attri
butes and Personality of the Absolute, the Conceptions of the Crea
tion, the Preservation, and the Government, of the World, and of
the World-time. The book closes with brief discussions of Religion
and Morality, and Dogmas and Confessions.

Outlines of Practical Philosophy.

This one of the " Outlines " contains a discussion of Ethical
Principles, Moral Ideals, and the Freedom of the Will, and then an
application of the theory to the Individual, to Marriage, to Society,
and to the State. Many interesting remarks on Divorce, Socialism,
Representative Government, etc., abound throughout the volume.
Its style is more popular than that of the other works of Lotze, and
it will doubtless be widely read.

Outlines of Psychology.

The Outlines of Psychology treats of Simple Sensations, the
Course of Representative Ideas, of Attention and Inference, of
Intuitions of Objects as in Space, of the Apprehension of the Exter
nal World by the Senses, of Errors of the Senses, of Feelings, and of
Bodily Motions. Its second part is " theoretical," and discusses the
nature, position, and changeable states of the Soul, its relations to
time, and the reciprocal action of Soul and Body. It closes with a
chapter on the " Kingdom of Souls." Lotze is peculiarly rich and
suggestive in the discussion of Psychology.

246

PHILOSOPHY.

Outlines of /Esthetics.

The Outlines of ^Esthetics treats of the theory of the Beautiful
and of Phantasy, and of the Realization and different Species of the
Beautiful. Then follow brief chapters on Music, Architecture,
Plastic Art, Painting, and Poetry. An appendix to this volume
contains a brief biography of Lotze. This volume will be of the
same size as those issued already. [Ready in 1886.

Outlines of Logic.

The Outlines of Logic discusses both pure and applied Logic.
Under the first head come the formation of Concepts, the theory of
Judgment, a system of the forms of Judgment, the doctrine of argu
ment or the drawing of conclusions, the figures of Aristotle, etc.
The applied Logic presents the application of the forms of Concep
tion, the adducing of Proof, and the Process of Thought in Dis
covery. The Logic is followed by a brief treatise on the Encyclo
paedia of Philosophy, in which are set forth the definition and
method of Theoretical Philosophy, of Practical Philosophy, and of
the Philosophy of Religion. This volume will be about one-fifth
larger than the others, and will make an admirable brief text-book

in Logic.

W. T. Harris, Concord, Mass. : The
project of Prof. Ladd strikes me as by
all means a practical one. I think this
likely to be the most successful venture
in philosophical publication that I have
heard of lately.

John Bascom, Prfs. of Univ. of
Wis. : The publication of this book,
and of the promised series, is very
desirable.

Wm. F. Warren, Pres. Boston
University, in the " Western Christian
Advocate ": Prof. Ladd is rendering the
English-reading public a great service
by bringing out in neat and correct
form translations of the dictated por
tions of the late Professor Hermann
Lotze's lectures.

Noah K. Davis, Prof, of Moral
PAil., Univ. of Vir. : I have desired

\Ready in 1886.

very much for the use of my pupils,
who do not read German, a good trans
lation of Lotze's " Dictate " ever since
they began to appear. The piesent
translation leaves nothing to be desired,
except the completion of the series.

D. S. Gregory, Pres. Lake Forest
(III.) Univ. : Lotze's Outlines of Psy
chology will give the young men a
comprehensive grasp of all the capital
questions at the basis of the current psy
chological discussions, and help them
to estimate for themselves the real sci
entific standing of the prevalent sensa
tional psychology. The work of the
translator is admirably done, in conse
quence of his being able to enter into
the thought of the author.

W. D.Wilson, Cornell Univ., N. Y.:
I have for a long time regarded Lotze

PHILOSOPHY.

247

as the soundest, as well as the pro-
foundest, of all the German metaphy
sicians.

H. N. Gardner, Prof, of Philosophy,
Smith College : I have -decided to use
the Philosophy of Religion next term
in the College.

John "Watson, Prof. Philosophy,
Univ. of Kingston, Can. : I think that
judiciously used, it would form a very
good transition from the study of Kant
to the study of Fichte, Schelling, and
Hegel, especially the last.

The Critic, New York: The in
fluence of Lotze would be most salu
tary in this country at the present time,
and many would find in him the phil
osophic guide they need. His recon
ciliation between science and phil
osophy, or between materialism and
idealism, is of great importance. To
many it will commend itself as the only
way out of the philosophic confusion of
the present time. The student will find
much crowded into a few pages, but
Lotze has the merit of clearness.

New Englander : The translation
of the volume before us is marked by
that carefulness, accuracy, and thor
oughness that characterize all of Prof.
Ladd's work. The task he has accom
plished was by no means a slight one,
as those familiar with the German of
Lotze will recognize ; and if the Eng
lish reader still finds difficulties in the
way of a clear apprehension of the
teaching of Lotze, we must remind him
that these difficulties cannot be re
moved by a translation, however excel
lent it may be.

Literary "World, Boston : Pro
fessor Ladd has done a great service
to all those persons who are interested
in the vital questions of the present day,
but who are not sufficiently familiar with

German to make it easy to read, in the
original tongue, one of the freshest and
most profound of modern thinkers.
We have not found ourselves able to
agree with Lotze in all his doctrines ;
but have so greatly admired both the
candor and the acute profundity of his
thought, that we disagree with him
modestly, with the concession that he
is possibly right when we think him
wrong. In the great main trend of his
thought we hold him to be certainly
right.

Mind, London, Eng. : No words are
needed to commend such an enter
prise, now that Lotze's importance as a
thinker is so well understood. The
translation is careful and painstaking.

Unitarian Review, Boston : We
have already called attention to the
admirable service Prof. Ladd is ren
dering students of philosophy by editing
these dictated portions of the lectures
of Hermann Lotze. This volume of
Outlines is of great interest and sug-
gestiveness. It is clear in vision and
strong.

While we have not accepted the au
thor's reasoning as a whole, we have
found it remarkably suggestive and
stimulating.

University, Chicago : It is this
union in Lotze of scientific spirit, on
the one hand, and of deep regard for
the fundamental interests of man, on
the other, that makes Lotze so signifi
cant a figure in philosophy at present,
and the study of him so hopeful a
sign.

We know of no book of 150 pages
that contains more condensed food for
thought, or more pregnant statement of
informing truth on the higher themes
of man's life than these Outlines of the
Philosophy of Religion.

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Life, Art, and Characters of Shakespeare.

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New School Shakespeare. Cloth. Each play .45
Old School Shakespeare, per play ... .20
Expurgated Family Shakespeare .... 10.00
Essays on Education, English Studies, etc. .25
Three Vol. Shakespeare, per voL .... 1.25

Text-Book of Poetry 1.25

Text-Book of Prose 1.25

Pamphlet Selections, Prose and Poetry . .20

Classical English Reader 1.00

Hudson & Lamb : Merchant of Venice 25

(Classics for Children.)

Hunt .... Exodus and Daniel 60

Lambert . . . Robinson Crusoe . „ 35

(Classics for Children.)

Memory Gems 30

Lounsbury . . Chaucer's Parlament of Foules 50

Minto .... Manual of English Prose Literature ... 2.00

Sprague . . . Selections from Irving { g^ ; ; ; ; 'f.

Two Books of Paradise Lost, and Lycldas .45

Thorn .... Two Shakespeare Examinations 45

Yonge .... Scott's Quentin Durward 40

(Classics for Children.)

Copies sent to Teachers for Examination, with a vieu> to
Introduction, on receipt of Introduction Price.

GINN & COMPANY, Publishers,

BOSTON, NEW YOKK, AND CHICAGO.

201 L8850 c.1

Lotze # Outlines of the
philosophy of religion :

3 0005 02064885 6

201
L885o
Lotze

Outlines of the philosophy of

religion

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